


Only The Lonely

by henrywinters



Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - Chance Encounters, Alternate Universe - Crime, M/M, Multi, basically two stories become one, there's a lot going on here... oops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-07 11:45:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11058273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/henrywinters/pseuds/henrywinters
Summary: Still reeling from a romance that never was, Hongbin—a flight attendant who often dreams of being anywhere but “here”—finds himself falling for a handsome stranger; totally unaware that he works for one of Seoul's most wanted men.Officer Han, a rookie straight out of the academy, investigates strange crimes committed in his home city of Seoul as he simultaneously falls into curious love with a melancholic waiter.In a city of 10 million, how is it the heart may find exactly what it yearns for?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> idk where to begin explaining or even justifying this giant mess, but it's leobin! it's hyuken! one story told through the eyes of four people. originally, i was inspired by chungking express, so maybe you'll recognize a couple themes. i mention (many) songs throughout, and though there is a spotify playlist, i've taken it upon myself to link throughout the fic as well; ie. if a scene mentions a song, keep an eye out for a linked word. it'll direct you to the song so you can better imagine the atmosphere ♡
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> [spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/synthbin/playlist/3WpT44WdGcEA29wZ1PJGZx)

 

 

 

**T H E   B A B Y L O N   H O T E L**

 

 

The call had come in a little after 2 in the morning, just the night before, but because it seemed terrifically desperate to return a call at that hour, Hongbin had waited until the following evening to stop at a payphone, not far from the hotel where he had been staying all week.

 

'Why don't you just call from your own phone?' Wonsik had wanted to know. But Hongbin hadn't the gall to tell him the truth, that it was more likely Jaehwan would answer if it wasn't Hongbin's number shown up on his phone.

 

The payphone was sticky against his palm and it smelled a little like nickel and burned plastic, but Hongbin cradled it close to his mouth anyway.

 

'I had a missed call,' he laughed over the line, into the mailbox of Jaehwan's cell, 'but it was an unknown number, so I'm not sure but I thought it might have been you.' The time on his wristwatch told him it was no later than a quarter after six. 'I guess the call came in last night, but I only now saw it.

 

'Anyway,' he looked over his shoulder to Wonsik who had left the payphone for the soda fountain of the shop next door. 'You know where to find me. If you call back, I won't miss it this time. I'll even keep my phone turned up, so that I won't miss it.' He laughed again, but even he could hear the fault in it. 'I hope nothing's wrong, you know? I just hope nothing's happened to you.'

 

He hung up before he could further his deprecation.

 

'I dunno why you do this,' said Wonsik. He had listened for as long as he could, before the familiar pangs of embarrassment reared heavily inside him. He said, not unkindly, 'You know it wasn't Jaehwan who called.'

 

'It could have been,' Hongbin scowled. But he knew the truth just as well as Wonsik did: the unknown caller was mostly likely a bill collector, perhaps a guy from the bar some nights ago; anyone, really, but Jaehwan.

 

'How do you know, Hongbin? He didn't answer anyway, so how do you know?'

 

It was the first Thursday of October; night closing in with all the light of Gangnam burning like stars so very near one could feel the heat of them pressing down, sweltering, at the back of one's neck; it was a sultry autumn, and if not for the overwhelming discomfort of heat and the muggy humidity of promised rain, Hongbin would not have taken the plastic cup of soda Wonsik offered him. If not because of childish reason, then at least to show that he was, in fact, a little angry with Wonsik's inability to empathize.

 

Hongbin thanked him for the soda, but told him, rather snappy: 'You don't know for sure that he wasn't the one that called. You don't know _anything_.'

 

'I guess I don't. But I don't think he'll call back, and I don't think you should get your hopes up about it.'

 

'Oh,' Hongbin looked away. 'You don't have to worry about _that_.' If there was anything he had learned over the past weeks, it was that his hopes should never be lifted. Dramatically, with a pout that pinched his lips into an indeterminable line, he thought: he would just never have his hopes up ever again, for he had waited three Fridays and four Mondays to hear from Jaehwan. Eventually, he figured, time would wane and the telephone would stop ringing; soon enough, when Hongbin called again, there would be the tinny voice of an operator—as cold as he felt—informing him the number he had reached was no longer in service.

 

But until then, he couldn't see the harm in trying.

 

'I wanted to see him one last time,' Hongbin confessed stolidly. 'Before I leave.'

 

'You're leaving for a week, not the rest of your life.'

 

The night train to Songpa rattled to a noisy stop; the two of them shouldered by, with eyes downcast, through the comings and goings of other passengers.

 

'Yeah, but I had thought—excuse me,' Hongbin hurried to a vacant spot at the end of the cart, avoiding those along the way. 'I thought if he didn't answer, then when I get back, well, I guess I'd stop calling.'

 

'You should have stopped a while ago.'

 

There was no disputing this; they both knew, however detached he was from the real problem, Wonsik was right. It didn't matter the displeasure Hongbin felt about this, nor the unbiased chagrin Wonsik showcased when proving a point. He was right, and that was simply it.

 

'You weren't even really dating,' he dared say; 'I don't see why you can't let him go.'

 

As they stood waiting for the train to arrive at Olympic Park, small bumps along the tracks leading them to shoulder into one another, Hongbin was determined to keep his mind occupied. But he badly wanted to tell Wonsik that he didn't know the answer to his wondering; he wanted very much to stop thinking of the first time he had seen Jaehwan in the airport of Jeju outside arrivals. It had been a terribly long layover for such a short flight, and the two of them—Hongbin, in his flight attendants uniform; Jaehwan, carting around an armful of magazines and a tired carry-on—had shared breakfast at a small bistro within the airport. They had talked of Italy (where Jaehwan had vacation for the summer), of the rains of Sweden; and how long Hongbin had been attending flights— _'Just a little over three years';_  Jaehwan had even been a little impressed by that.

 

Theirs had been a strange meeting. It had been as if they had known one another for years already; friends so suddenly, but never anything more than midnight dinners at 24-hour diners, or the occasional night shared in one of the many hotels Hongbin's job paid for. So, of course, it was near impossible to explain this to Wonsik; how could he sum up in such few words the way he felt about Jaehwan, when he was almost certain that the only reason he felt this way at all was because Jaehwan had been one of the few who had ever really noticed him.

 

Outside Olympic Park, Wonsik lit a cigarette with his hand curled around the flame. He asked, 'What are you doing tonight? Just going home?'

 

Home to a flight attendant wasn't really a home. There wasn't a family to greet them, or the comfort of a place of their own. Hongbin lived out of suitcases and carry-on cargo with the same folded shirts he wore every week. Tonight home was a place called The Babylon. He had already stopped by for the night and had curled up, faintly annoyed, among bleached sheets of itchy polyester.

 

'I have to pack.' He swatted the nape of his neck where the touch of a mosquito tickled. 'I hate these long trips, you know. I have to take so many bags, so much shit. I can't wear the same clothes every day, but I'd like to.' He laughed and surprised even himself with how genuine it seemed.

 

'You'll probably get bored in a couple hours,' Wonsik said. 'If you do, and you wanna go out, give me a call.'

 

He gave Hongbin the rest of the cigarette before scoping the ebb of traffic, then crossing the road. He stayed in view for quite a while as Hongbin walked one side of the street and Wonsik walked the other, but the traffic thickened gradually as they neared the city, and before The Babylon breached into view—its sharp corners and all the bright whites of open windows, burning like eyes against a pallid blue dark—Wonsik had disappeared into a cab.

 

Once alone in the hotel room of eggshell walls, appearing grimy as they reflected the sallow light of dim overheads, Hongbin first hung his uniform from a peg on the wall. Then he carefully disrobed from the pleated slacks he had donned all day for a more relaxed pair of jeans that slipped low on his slender hips. Already, he felt more eased; he climbed into bed with the cotton comforter pooled around him, and lit a cigarette from the pack on the side table.

 

He reached for the telephone and dialed Jaehwan, one last time.

 

'It's me again,' he said. 'I know I just called a little bit ago, but I wanted to tell you that I'm leaving tonight. I'm going to Osaka and I'll be gone a week. It's for a convention, a short-term vacation the company promised.'

 

Wary of the cord, Hongbin pulled the phone into bed with him. It was an old rotary phone that dinged when he set it down and made his voice tinny, and hollow.

 

'I thought by now that you would have called back, but you haven't, so I guess I'm trying to say that I won't call anymore. I guess, I can say I'm sorry, but I dunno what for.' He turned onto his stomach, cheek pressed against cold cotton of the pillowcase. 'I won't call anymore, unless you call me first. But I don't think you will. I might just be feeling sorry for myself, because I don't know if you'll even listen to this whole message. I hope you will, though.'

 

He heaved a sigh as he reached for the television remote. 'It was nice knowing you,' he said as the TV's blue light filled his dim room. He dropped the phone loudly into its cradle, and loneliness like drought fell over him; outside, it had started to drizzle.

 

____________________

 

As Hongbin lay lonesome in the cool dark of his Babylon bedroom, Taekwoon sat in a manner much the same, in a cafe across town. The two of them knew nothing of the other, but theirs was a heartache deeply shared.

 

'I can't do this anymore,' Taekwoon said.

 

'Yes, you can,' Hakyeon replied calmly.

 

'Well, I don't _want_ to.'

 

'That's a different story, then.'

 

'Can't you try to understand for even a moment?' He was whining; it was embarrassing to hear the lift in his own tone, already so high-pitched whenever he drank—which he had done quite a bit of over the last hour—heightened to a tone almost childlike. He knew better than to expect a response, but when one didn't come, Taekwoon couldn't face the irritation he felt. He hung his head between bony shoulders, looking as if any moment he would topple over dead.

 

Eventually, Hakyeon eyed him. 'You'll feel better about it in the morning. You get like this sometimes, you know that.'

 

'It's different this time.'

 

'Different how?'

 

'I don't know how to tell you.'

 

It wasn't far from the truth. It was, perhaps, the most honest thing Taekwoon had said all night; for how was a man of his caliber, who made a living off the lives paid so dauntingly to his hyung-nim, supposed to tell his partner that all the bodies, all the men, whom they had collected and buried over the years felt so moderately unimportant to the one life they had taken tonight. There was an absolute distinction between the growing pile of deaths of their past and the one of this man, named Go Jungsoo, that it seemed he weighed cumbrous as a cloudburst over Taekwoon's head.

 

'I can't help you if you don't explain a little better, Taekwoonie.'

 

'He had a family.'

 

Hakyeon was aghast. 'They all have families, what do you expect?'

 

'He had _children_.'

 

Hakyeon turned only the upper part of his body, drastically offended with a deep crease between his eyebrows. He said, 'Almost everyone does. How is it that you're only now thinking of this? I can't tell if you're being stupid about it, or if you had really tricked yourself into believing our job wasn't in vain.'

 

'Christ, Hakyeon, I don't care about the vanity. I don't think I even care so much about the job, exactly.'

 

'What in the hell would it be then?' He had drank from his latte, his motions of deep lethargic movement, as if he was tired all the way to the very core of his bones. A thin line of foam collected on his smooth upper lip.

 

'Have you grown a conscience overnight, Taekwoonie, is that it?'

 

His question, though condescending—and a bit uncomfortable as it settled in the far regions of Taekwoon's heart—, was accepted. They had worked side by side far longer than either cared to remember, and because of the time spent so close together, Hakyeon was allowed to speak to Taekwoon in this manner.

 

But it didn't mean that Taekwoon accepted it without argument. He laid his head atop his arms, sulking into the table.

 

'I might have,' he challenged. 'But, really, I think I'm just tired. Haven't you ever gotten tired of it?'

 

'I'm tired of it now, Taekwoon, but as long as people keep blowing off debts they can't repay, then we have to do this.'

 

'Well, I don't want to anymore.'

 

Hakyeon started to stare. It was an unnerving gaze with all the investigative thoroughness that was, perhaps, the reason behind his being hired. Taekwoon had seen this look often.

 

'Don't start losing your head. I'm just tired, alright? Don't you ever think about how old we're getting?'

 

'Of course I do.'

 

'We'll be thirty-two next year. Did you think, when we started this job, that we'd be still doing it ten years later?' He was growing agitated; all the beers he had drank before now rose in the form of a headache. No longer gratefully numb to the guilt, Taekwoon bowed his head once more. He fell into a simple quietude as his words hung heavy between them.

 

Hakyeon finished his latte, but refused another as the waitress made her rounds. He looked ready to leave, as if any moment he would bound from their table into Gangnam, where the rain had yet to begin falling but the night sky draped pungent, and pavement grey, overhead.

 

It wasn't long into their committed silence when Hakyeon's cellphone began to ring. It was an awfully silly tune from a Billboard 100 song that Taekwoon particularly didn't care for; it was obnoxious, but Hakyeon was unfazed by the sudden sound.

 

'Hyung-nim,' he said into the mouthpiece. 'Yes, of course we're finished for the night. We're having a coffee.'

 

It was as Hakyeon spoke that Taekwoon was pulled forcefully from his depressed stupor and hustled outside where the air pressed down foggy all over him. He could feel it seeping deep into his skin.

 

'Everything went well,' Hakyeon continued. 'I mean, not as well as it could have, but better than. . .' He glanced up through his eyelashes, taking Taekwoon in with one deep look. 'Yeah, he's with me.'

 

He held out the phone a second later. 'For you.'

 

'Hyung,' said Taekwoon softly. Hakyeon had already started to slip away. He paused by the side of the street before running across to a bakery with pink florescence beaming brightly between the passing of traffic.

 

Shin Sungrok—aged thirty-nine—was a man of few words. He had black hair similar to Taekwoon's own, but left unruly and overgrown down the nape of his slender neck, he appeared much younger than one was to believe; it was even in the way he spoke: a careless drawl that left him sounding young and vague. Even on a night like tonight, when his payment had not been collected in bills, but rather paid in body parts—in carnage of unsavory gore—he seemed unperturbed. Almost defiant.

 

'Night didn't go as planned, I suppose, Leo-ssi. That can't be much fun, can it?'

 

'No.' Taekwoon focused on the passing of cars with disinterest filling him like lead. 'Should we call it a night?'

 

'You could, but I'd like to see you before you head home.' There was a brief silence, followed by a sharp inhale; Taekwoon imagined Sungrok with a joint between his slender fingers. 'If you don't mind.'

 

'Course not, hyung-nim.'

 

'You don't sound very excited to see me.'

 

'I suppose I'm just tired.'

 

'Yes, well, after you leave you can go home and sleep all you want.' He paused thoughtfully. 'But we might be a while, you understand? If we are, you're welcome to stay with me tonight.'

 

Taekwoon balked visibly, but there was nobody there to see it. He stopped in a stupor with one hand thrust deeply into the pocket of his pleated slacks; the other hand held Hakyeon's phone in a nervous white-knuckled grip.

 

'Oh, hyung, I. . .' It had been so long since an offer like this had been presented to him; he had forgotten how unnerving it was to say no to the person who employed you. 'I have plans tonight, otherwise I would.'

 

'You do?'

 

'Yes, I promised someone that I would meet with them. And since I'm coming to see you now, I'll already be late.'

 

'Who is this person?'

 

Taekwoon faltered. 'Just. . . someone.'

 

'Someone you like?'

 

'Yes,' Taekwoon lied. 'Someone I like very much.'

 

Although Sungrok seemed to accept this response, and even in his goodbye he sounded cheerful, as if Taekwoon's coming to see him was enough to placate him, Taekwoon knew far better than to fall for it. He had not been asked to spend the night with Sungrok since he was twenty-five years old; memories best forgotten, and the discomfort of his strained muscles, of his body twisted in ways he was unused to, plagued him like bad dreams at the very remembrance. There was no way Taekwoon wanted to experience the possessive quality that was his hyung-nim again.

 

Across the street, Hakyeon emerged from the bakery with a paper bag beneath his arm; he spotted Taekwoon at the same moment Taekwoon thrust his arm over his head, attempting to flag down one of the many cabs.

 

'What's the hurry?' Hakyeon shouted, but by then a car had stopped, and Taekwoon slipped into the backseat without a word. He waited with the door propped open, his head craned back against the seat, as if he planned to sleep there as he waited.

 

'Are we running from someone?' Hakyeon smiled. He offered the paper bag. Inside was a cluster of pastries. Taekwoon wasn't hungry, but he took one anyway.

 

'He made me an offer,' Taekwoon began. 'He asked if I wanted to come stay at his place tonight.'

 

Hakyeon watched him sullenly. 'Did you tell him yes?'

 

'No, I said I had to meet someone tonight.'

 

'Do you?'

 

'What do you think?' Taekwoon pulled bits of the pastry apart, crumbs falling delicate as snow across his lap. 'Who do we even know around here?'

 

They rode in silence, with the radio playing an outdated pop song, so old it was hard for Taekwoon to pinpoint exactly what it was.

 

'He only gets this way when he feels he has to,' Hakyeon said slowly. 'Remember a few years ago, when you wanted to move out of the city?'

 

'Course I do. I think that was the last time he asked me to stay with him.'

 

'He didn't take no for an answer that time.' Hakyeon sighed deeply; it was a heavy burst of breath that cut too loudly through their silence. 'You need to be careful what you say to him now. You may think this sudden conscience of yours grew overnight, but it's been happening over time. I've noticed.'

 

'Have you?' Taekwoon scowled. 'What are you, a doctor now? Did you see the symptoms or something?'

 

'I'm not trying to pester you.'

 

'Well, you are.'

 

'Listen to me.' Hakyeon reached over then, the paper bag rustling between them. He first brushed the crumbs from Taekwoon's lap, then smoothed his tie in a brotherly manner. His touch was not necessary, but came as a comfort that Taekwoon could rely upon.

 

'You can't tell him anything,' Hakyeon said. 'Don't talk about how you felt tonight—not ever. He'll only lose his head over it.'

 

'If you think he'd hurt me—'

 

'I know he would.' His was a gaze so deeply rendered, Taekwoon couldn't bring himself to return it. 'He gets upset whenever he thinks that you're going to leave, and he does whatever he can to keep you.'

 

'Killing me wouldn't very well be a way of keeping me, would it?'

 

'Keep your voice down.' They both glanced over at the driver who, lost to himself, didn't seem to be listening. 'If you really believe Sungrok wouldn't hurt you to keep you in line, then you're more deluded than I thought.

 

'Just don't say anything.' There was a whine in his words so like a beg, Taekwoon was slightly floored. 'Maybe in a couple weeks, if you really still want to stop all this, then you can try to talk to him about it. But you have to sweeten him up first, you can't let him think just because you're tired of the job means that you don't still care about him.'

 

The anger which surged deeply from the bottom of Taekwoon's stomach tasted bitter at the back of his throat. He didn't want Sungrok to think such a thing. Perhaps, he mused, when he was still young, barely of legal age and as desperately homeless as he had been, he had liked Sungrok quite a bit. Maybe even genuinely. But now—he couldn't bear the thought.

 

Partly joking, but fearful of the severity of his own voice, Taekwoon intoned: 'What if I just kill him instead?'

 

The gleam of Hakyeon's eyes dimmed. 'You're a fucking idiot.'

 

Taekwoon turned toward the window. 'It was only a question.'

 

' _Don't_ tell him, do you hear me?'

 

'Jesus'—Taekwoon squirmed out of Hakyeon's reach as his hand, gripping terribly hard, grabbed his forearm—'I won't, alright? If it'll shut you up, then I won't.'

 

'That's all you had to say.'

 

'You can be just as bad as he is, do you know that?' But it was seconds after the words had left his mouth that Taekwoon wished to take them back. Hakyeon wasn't in any way like their hyung-nim; he was pushy, and a little demanding, but he was not so cold at heart.

 

When the cab pulled up to the suit emporium Sungrok owned—a faded old shop called Armoire that all his employees were very familiar with—Taekwoon turned to Hakyeon and said, 'I didn't really mean that.'

 

'No, I didn't think you did,' he replied coldly. 'Be kind and pay the driver why don't you?'

 

It was his way of getting the last word.

 

____________________

 

It was a quarter to midnight when the white rotary phone rang ugly in the dark of Hongbin's hotel room, but he wasn't yet asleep. The television played a talk show, one by a name he wasn't familiar with, and the topic was: was the stock market decline responsible for the rise in divorce. Hongbin didn't know the answer to such a question, but he watched like a mindless ape, glowering at the flickering hues of light of that old TV set.

 

He lurched for the phone after the second ring, a large part of him hoping it would be Jaehwan he heard upon answering; but he knew it couldn't possibly be. He hadn't left a callback number, nor the room in which he was staying.

 

'Hello?'

 

It was Wonsik's sullen drawl across the line. He offered a stolid, 'Hey,' as if he was bored. 'I got called in to work.'

 

'That's a bummer.'

 

'Isn't it? No one ever comes to the bar on Thursday nights. Except maybe all those lonely people.' He sniffed loudly. 'Come see me.'

 

Hongbin brought the phone to the bed and rolled over onto his back. He said, 'Are you making fun of me, or something?'

 

'No,' but then Wonsik laughed. 'Not purposely, anyway. I'm bored out of my fucking mind. I've seen about three people and I've been here two hours already.'

 

'How enchanting.'

 

Wonsik laughed quietly. There was the sound of clattering dishes; Hongbin could imagine him within the bar's artificial dark, wiping down counters already spotless.

 

'Are you gonna spend your last night in Seoul moping around your bedroom?' he challenged. 'Cause if not, then you can come see me and have a couple drinks on the house.'

 

'To tell you the truth'—Hongbin reached for the pack of cigarettes on the bedside table; he lit one, and spoke through a heavy mouthful of smoke—'I'd thought about staying in and sulking.'

 

'Of course you had. Come out, alright? It's a slow night, could be fun. I'll have a drink with you.'

 

Before Hongbin could articulate a good enough reason not to leave the warmth of his bed, the line clicked off; he didn't think any response would have really been good enough anyway.

 

/

 

Wonsik worked on the outskirts of Gangnam, in a bar called The Wall, which was a short walk from The Babylon. Though it would have been a shorter cab ride had Hongbin not been so flustered upon leaving to forget his wallet.

 

The rain had began to pour. He imagined it was the kind of rain people wrote about. The bend of bare branches, and multi-colored leaves stuck all along the sidewalk's end; the gutters were full of dirtied water, as if oil had been spilled into it, and small hurricanes gushed like rapids by empty bus stops, between idling cars of a dozen colors. The nightwatchman at the hotel had been kind enough to lend him an umbrella, but as the wind bared down in hazardous swoops, it seemed futile to try and keep the umbrella under control. So he walked with his head down, water dripping down the sides of his face like tears from a skyline of murky black.

 

It was as he left the heart of Songpa to the fringes of Gangnam that he could walk beneath the canopies of storefronts, rain drumming incessant overhead; but as he rounded the corner toward the river, he came up on a shop called **BAMBINO'S** , and there in the front: was a horde of police cars, burning brightly like fireworks through the sheet of cold rain.

 

'Sir,' an officer called to him. 'I'm afraid you can't come this way.' He was a man of boyish appearance; his dark hair swept away from his face, shining like silk and watered down.

 

'You'll have to cut through the alley,' he said, a little frantic. His name-tag read **OFFICER HAN**  in thick black letters pasted to the front of a vibrant green safety vest. 'Between those two shops there'—he pointed, and Hongbin followed his finger—'yeah, right there. It'll only take you a couple more minutes.'

 

But how was it he knew where Hongbin had wanted to go? He didn't feel up to an argument, and so nodded passively. There were too many officers to squeeze by anyway; and by the looks of it, there was a gurney at the side of the road. Hongbin didn't dare venture any closer for fear of what he would witness. But the walk through the alley—which was a smog filled, spoiled piece of earth—wasn't something he could imagine himself ever being grateful for; his shoes were muddied by the time he pushed open the entrance doors to The Wall.

 

Wonsik, behind the counter, waved him over immediately as Madonna declared over the loudspeakers _I hear your voice, it's like an angel sighing_. . .

 

'Took you long enough,' Wonsik jeered. There was a black and tan sitting on the bar top, all the ice melted. 'I made this forever ago, thought you'd be here a little sooner.'

 

'Well,' Hongbin sniffed the drink. 'I don't want it.' He set the umbrella on the bar as he fell, soggy and uncomfortable, onto the bar stool.

 

'Give me that.' Wonsik took the umbrella and the dripping red rain slicker Hongbin had been wearing; he set them aside to dry. 'What do you want, then? A Bellini? A mimosa?'

 

'Something stronger.'

 

The song picked up in a flourish of upbeat pop that could only belong to the 80's, and as Wonsik surveyed the dozens of bottles along the back shelf in idle hope that Hongbin would be the first to point out what he wanted to drink—for in the times Hongbin had come to The Wall, they had bickered over which liquor would taste best without a mixer—movement caught Hongbin's attention.

 

A man, impressively dressed for a place like The Wall, sat alone on the very last stool at the edge of the bar. He was slumped forward, perhaps having had too much to drink; but it was the way he stirred the straw within his cup, how it seemed even from so far Hongbin could sense the extreme austerity which resonated from him, that caught (and kept) his attention.

 

'What's _he_ drinking?' Hongbin inquired, wary of his voice.

 

'Bourbon, neat. You'll never choke that down,' Wonsik smiled.

 

Hongbin made a distasteful expression. He said, 'Well, I could try it. Why not?' Once he had his drink, he leaned over the bar in false secrecy, and demanded to know: 'Who is he anyway?'

 

'I can't remember his name, but he comes in almost every weekend. Weird to see him tonight, but. . .' he shrugged. 'He messes with the jukebox a lot. He'll probably come over here sooner or later.'

 

But it was much later before the man in the designer suit with the paisley floral tie, left his secluded stool for the radio. By then Hongbin had managed to throw back two separate drinks—one bourbon; and a whiskey—and his legs felt terribly weak.

 

'What are you going to play?' Hongbin asked, rather bravely. He was troubled by the slur in his own voice. He couldn't possibly be as drunk as he felt.

 

The man regarded him gently; his face was tired and a little worn. It reminded Hongbin of the way his father would look after long nights in the city, working twelve hour shifts in an office building he absolutely loathed. Maybe he was a businessman.

 

'Is there something you want to hear?' he asked Hongbin, kindly.

 

Once put on the spot, it was hard to respond. His eyes glimmered like sulfide and were just as sharp; his hair was a mess of waves, haphazardly pushed out of his face. He was, in all honesty, quite beautiful.

 

'N. . .No,' Hongbin stammered. 'Not really.'

 

The man turned away with a rueful sort of smile that was oddly painful to be the cause of; then [Sandy Lam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU8J47jm1OY)* began to croon over the loudspeakers. She was someone Hongbin had been acquainted with, for her music was his mother's favorite, but to hear it now, in such a dark place where the neon burned brighter than any other light, was of such lonesome variety it was strange.

 

There wasn't time to think. What austerity Hongbin had felt was now replaced with a melancholic grace that pulled greedily at his heart; Wonsik began to speak over the spellbinding music, but Hongbin paid him little mind. He took the tumbler of whiskey he had yet to finish and, as if his body had fallen victim to his mind's eye, he followed the row of bar stools until he reached the very end, where the man in his designer suit sat quietly. Hongbin swayed into the seat beside him.

 

'Hello,' he whispered. He was greeted with a smile. 'I'm Hongbin.'

 

'Taekwoon,' the other offered. He spoke with such gentle conviction it was difficult to hear him above the radio, but Hongbin—leaned drastically close—was able to catch it, barely.

 

'How's your night?' Hongbin wondered aloud. 'I ask because, well, you look—I dunno, upset?'

 

'I do?' He was amused, Hongbin was certain, for color blossomed heady and red across his cheeks. 'I'm sorry you think that, but I'm not.'

 

'No? I don't really believe you.'

 

'That's alright, you don't have to.'

 

'Are you heartbroken?' It didn't seem he would answer, so Hongbin urged a little more: 'I might be projecting, but if you are—well, that's alright, because I am a little too.'

 

Taekwoon watched him carefully. It was slightly unnerving to receive such a deep look, but as much as he wanted to squirm, Hongbin kept still.

 

'Why are you heartbroken?' Taekwoon asked softly. It seemed everything he did had a softness to it: there was no _thump_ as he set his glass down, nor was there a creak of the seat beneath his movement; his eyes took Hongbin in and it seemed in that moment his face appeared a little less worn, a little tired.

 

'I don't have a good answer for that,' laughed Hongbin. 'I shouldn't technically be broken at all, you see, because I haven't even seen him for a little over three weeks. Even though I wish I could, I haven't, because he doesn't want to see me.'

 

'I'm sorry to hear that.'

 

'Yeah.' Hongbin finished his whiskey. 'I guess I am too. But, tonight I decided I wasn't going to miss him anymore, and so it feels a little like. . . like we broke up all over again.'

 

'Well,' Taekwoon looked away. 'You're very handsome, so I'm sure you'll find someone new.'

 

'You think I'm handsome?' Hongbin asked, rather seriously. He felt silly for asking it, and a little strange for how quickly his heart suddenly picked up; but Taekwoon laughed, and his was a warm laugh so touching it seemed to make sense the fire Hongbin felt rage inside him.

 

'I doubt I'm the first to tell you so.'

 

'No, course not, but see. . .' he shied away. 'I was thinking a little bit ago—God, I dunno why I wanna tell you this, but—' he laughed. 'I was thinking you were really good-looking. So, I guess, it's nice to hear that from you.' Hongbin quickly turned away with his arm lifted, wishing Wonsik would come closer—would come _now—_ before he made a complete fool of himself.

 

But even as Wonsik neared them, he stayed long enough to fill their cups, then meandered off; he appeared smug as he left, and for this reason Hongbin felt ill comforted.

 

He and Taekwoon shared a silence that was not wholly uncomfortable, but was of great weight that Hongbin felt weak beneath it; he sipped slowly, hoping he could control himself once the liquor really took hold.

 

'You said your name was Hongbin, right?'

 

'Yeah, that's right.'

 

Taekwoon watched him curiously. It was as if in this moment he was determining the type of person Hongbin was. Perhaps, he had been thrown off by his severity, how simple it was for Hongbin to throw himself in a threshold he so poorly knew; but whatever it was Taekwoon wondered, it must have been unquestionable good, for his eyes bloomed as sparks of light beneath flickering neon; he smiled.

 

Taekwoon asked, 'If I told you to pick a song on the radio, one that you would dance to, would you dance with me?'

 

Hongbin felt giddy with desire. 'Yes,' he murmured, 'but I can't dance very well.'

 

'That's alright. I'll show you how.'

 

'I don't really know the songs on the box, either. I'm not. . . familiar with anything here.'

 

Taekwoon offered him a single silver coin. 'Then why don't you put on [B-10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIR-ql2ulXg)*? It's one of my favorites.' He pressed the coin, warm from his pocket, into Hongbin's small palm. As their hands touched, there came the distinct feeling of falling in love.

 

The song was an old one, perhaps one played at weddings. Hongbin couldn't recall ever hearing it in a run-down bar like The Wall, but as Taekwoon rose with all the confidence of a retired dancer, Hongbin was certain there wasn't a place more fitting for a song like this; nor a man.

 

'Come here,' said Taekwoon. He extended a hand and guided Hongbin close; he reeled him in like a catch off the sea, so certain of himself, he made Hongbin blush.

 

It was obvious, after moments alone on the darkened dance floor—their only light that of the flickering beer signs above them—, that Taekwoon was an awfully good dancer. He lead with his right hand, his left a pressing warmth against the center of Hongbin's spine. It was terribly easy for Hongbin to swoon forward so that their chests may touch, feeling comforted as Taekwoon guided him.

 

'I'll tell you the truth,' Taekwoon began. 'I'm not heartbroken like you seem to think I am. But, it's possible, that you're a little right.'

 

Hongbin, dazed by the sudden closeness of their bodies, found himself incredibly charmed by Taekwoon's inability to admit the damage of his own self—even when he wanted to.

 

He whispered, 'Who broke your heart?'

 

'I suppose I did myself.'

 

Hongbin wanted to know more—he was surprised by the desperate lurch of his heart, as if he may burst if he didn't know what it was Taekwoon was broken over—but there wasn't time to talk any more about it. Taekwoon wrapped his arm tightly around Hongbin's middle, bringing him ever closer as the song continued within the lonely austerity of The Wall; the entrance door was propped open as Wonsik smoked only partly out of the building. The wind blew sultry and smoky through the dark, and brought with it: a tenderness Hongbin easily fell into.

 

He leaned his cheek to the cusp of Taekwoon's shoulder, his mouth extraordinarily close to the rising pulse within Taekwoon's neck. He smelled of expensive cologne, a designer brand Hongbin had smelled before, but couldn't quite pinpoint; whatever it was, it brought a fluttering to his stomach that was impossible to swallow down.

 

/

 

'Can I ask you,' Taekwoon began, 'where you like to visit most? Being a flight attendant and all, you get around often, don't you?'

 

'I really don't. I'm not the pilot, so I don't get to go on all the trips, or really see much more than the Pacific. But I've been to Hong Kong.' Hongbin sat up a little straighter on the bar stool. He had been watching, for the last few minutes, as Taekwoon folded a paper airplane out of a restaurant flier abandoned on one of the bar tables.

 

'It's really pretty there,' he mused. 'It's a lot like here, but a little bigger. A little louder. But it's nice.' He surveyed Taekwoon for a reaction. 'Have you been?'

 

'No. But I don't think I would mind going.'

 

'You should! At least once in your life.'

 

Wonsik had stopped by momentarily to refill their drinks for what felt like the hundredth time. Hongbin was beginning to think he had watered down the whiskey, or perhaps wasn't serving whiskey at all; for his head was no longer swimming, and his legs were stronger than before.

 

Hongbin sipped his last drink thoughtfully before saying, 'I'm leaving on an early flight in the morning. I'm going to Osaka for a business trip.'

 

'Oh?'

 

'I'll be gone a week.'

 

'Well,' Taekwoon examined his hands. He said, 'That isn't very long,' without much conviction at all. Hongbin wondered if he was letdown. The idea of Taekwoon—upset in any way by Hongbin's departure—was enough to leave him giddy.

 

He touched Taekwoon's hand. It wasn't the first time in the last half hour that he had reached over to lay a hand on Taekwoon's body, but he allowed himself to linger; he squeezed Taekwoon's fingers gently.

 

'I'm staying at The Babylon tonight, if you'd like to come back with me.'

 

Taekwoon—ever the gentleman—regarded Hongbin with first a quiet glance, then allowed himself a smile. 'If you'd like me to.' He stood and shouldered out of his overcoat as Hongbin waved Wonsik near, explaining in quiet haste that he would call after his plane landed.

 

'Are you two close?' Taekwoon inquired, once out of ear-shot. 'You and the bartender.'

 

'Yeah, he's my closest friend. I think I've known him since we were thirteen. That's quite a while.'

 

'How long is that exactly? You can't be much older than twenty-three,' Taekwoon said, matter-of-factly.

 

As they waited by the side of the street for a vacant cab to take notice of them, Hongbin watched Taekwoon carefully. He wondered if he was only trying to be charming by calling Hongbin so young, or was it possible he could be so clueless.

 

'I'm twenty-eight,' Hongbin told him. 'Can't you tell?'

 

'I guess I can't. But that's a lot closer to my age,' Taekwoon laughed softly. 'Better for me.'

 

The rain had shifted from Songpa over Gangnam toward Seocho; the scent of soiled earth was overpowering as the wind picked up. There was a faint drizzle still falling like mercury from an overcast sky. Taekwoon laid his coat over Hongbin's shoulders, and reached out with an arm about the small of his back.

 

It was impossibly easy for Hongbin to fall into Taekwoon's side.

 

'I don't have fare for the cab,' Hongbin admitted, rather lamely. 'I walked here. We could always walk back, it isn't far.'

 

Taekwoon shook his head. 'I'd rather not,' he said stiffly. 'You don't have to worry about the fare.' He gave the street a sweeping glance, and Hongbin imagined he must have become agitated, for his mouth pinched into an indeterminable line.

 

'Let's walk this way.' He pulled Hongbin lightly away from the street and farther into the district. He was going the opposite way that they should have, and perhaps Hongbin should have said something; but he didn't feel that it was of importance.

 

'It'll be easier to get a ride here,' Taekwoon explained. 'There aren't any people, so a cab will have to stop eventually.'

 

He was right, of course; it was only a few minutes later that a cab pulled up beside them, the driver beckoning with a weak wave.

 

'The Babylon,' Taekwoon told him. He hadn't removed his arm from around Hongbin's middle; and as they sat close in the backseat, he moved only an inch so that his arm was around Hongbin's shoulders instead.

 

____________________

 

Shin Sungrok had been in the diner across the street. He had watched, rather tentatively, as Taekwoon had caught sight of him. His jealousy had always been quite ugly, but could it be possible, Taekwoon wondered, that his hyung-nim had followed him across town?

 

He waited for the familiar buzz of his phone; the telltale sign that Sungrok had, in fact, been sulking nearby. But it never came.

 

It was startling the unease which festered in the bottom of Taekwoon's stomach. He thought of the boy tucked into his side—a boy who was a man, though he didn't appear as one—who couldn't very well be mixed up in something like this. He thought it must have been fate that required Hongbin to disappear so suddenly the next day; Taekwoon would then have time to settle what doubts spurned Sungrok.

 

'Is something the matter?' Hongbin asked. They had made most of the trip in silence, but as The Babylon leered heavy and powder blue above the skyline, its bare windows opened onto the dayglow of television sets, of too many lights left on in the middle of the night, Taekwoon glanced at the boy in his arms.

 

'No,' Taekwoon smiled. He brushed his mouth across the heated skin of Hongbin's forehead without much thought. Their silence continued outside of the cab—Taekwoon swept the surrounding shops in desperate hope that Sungrok had not followed them so closely—but once he was within the wide room of The Babylon, where Hongbin's flight attendant uniform hung faultless from a peg, he felt a knot of tension coil into his stomach.

 

'I should probably tell you that it's been a while since I've gone home with someone.'

 

'Can you really call this a home?' Hongbin flung himself onto the bed with his arms stretched out like the blossoms of a flower: open, and ready to wilt. 'Don't be nervous, Taekwoon, we don't have to do anything you don't want to.'

 

'There isn't anything that I want to do exactly. But, I guess, there are a couple things I wouldn't _mind_ doing.' He felt very foolish for saying such a thing, but Hongbin simply smiled at him.

 

'Then why don't you come here?'

 

It was easy to imagine himself crossing the threshold of that poorly lit bedroom, to lie beside Hongbin on a coverlet of paisley floral that matched Taekwoon's tie near perfectly. But it was impossible to put one foot in front of the other.

 

'Are you hungry?' Taekwoon asked. 'I saw a couple menus down at the front desk,' he explained as Hongbin, with his head tipped gently to the side, eyed him curiously. 'Maybe we can share something, if you'd like.'

 

'Well, sure. Why not?'

 

Taekwoon ordered them a club sandwich, a plate of fries that Hongbin seemed particularly excited for, that they shared off a single plate on the floor of the hotel room. The television played a movie neither of them had seen before, and when the program cut to a commercial promoting a blender that could cut up whole vegetables, Hongbin exclaimed, 'But how is that _possible_?' with his mouth full and his legs folded beneath himself.

 

Taekwoon lit a cigarette from a pack inside Hongbin's suitcase. 'You're cute.'

 

'Did you know you can't call a man cute?'

 

Taekwoon laughed. 'No, I didn't know.'

 

'Well,' Hongbin turned away with a smile. 'You can't, but. . . thank you.' He pushed the plate aside then, what food was left was then discarded as Hongbin crawled closer. He said, 'Aren't you uncomfortable in that suit?'

 

'I guess I am.'

 

'Maybe you should change then.'

 

Taekwoon sucked in his lower lip as Hongbin reached for him. It seemed strange how slowly he moved, as if he was afraid he would be denied any moment. But Taekwoon allowed him to first unclasp the knot of his tie, then the very top button of the dress shirt underneath.

 

'Do you always dress so nicely?'

 

'It's part of my job.'

 

Hongbin hummed, 'So you're a businessman?'

 

'In a way.'

 

Hongbin continued to loosen the buttons of Taekwoon's shirt as he maneuvered into his lap; it wasn't a foreign weight to have someone sat so close to him—Hongbin seeming so small, there between his hands—but it was the knowledge that Hongbin was so utterly, utterly different than the boys he was used to that had Taekwoon's heart galloping into the center of his head.

 

He was enamored of the way Hongbin's fingers felt against his bare chest.

 

'Here.' Hongbin guided Taekwoon's hands to his own shirt. It was a plain cotton t-shirt, but it felt incredibly soft between Taekwoon's fingers. He allowed Taekwoon to pull it up his torso, exposing milk white skin painted blue by the glow of the television.

 

'You're so thin,' Taekwoon whispered.

 

'Maybe, but I'm not fragile or anything.'

 

'No, I didn't think you were.' He lifted the shirt over Hongbin's head, able to feel the warmth of his skin all at once. It was as Taekwoon pulled Hongbin's belt from the loops of his jeans that he became vaguely aware of Hongbin's hands so close to his crotch. He burned at the very thought of being touched.

 

'Will I see you when I get back?' Hongbin asked.

 

'In a week?'

 

'Yes, a week.'

 

Taekwoon guided Hongbin onto the bed; coverlet of down soft beneath their weight. 'A week is a long time to wait.' He worked Hongbin out of his jeans, his own pleated slacks left open at the waist. 'But I think I can manage.'

 

With his legs wrapped around Taekwoon's hips and hands threaded through the back of his hair, Hongbin whispered, 'If you stay all night, then maybe a week won't feel so bad.'

 

It was the invariable press of Hongbin's body that thrust from Taekwoon the terrible feeling of distress. He peered down at the boy beneath him, the blooming primrose pink across his hollowed cheeks, and thought of how unsuitable he was for someone so kind.

 

A memory surfaced then, one not of recent happening, but one of startling clarity all the same: Hakyeon, wielding a meat cleaver as Taekwoon held down a man, whose name he could not remember; the blood on the table, and the yowls like wails. A severed hand in a brown paper bag folded and kept in the inner pocket of Taekwoon's Armani suit. All of this: so ordinary.

 

Taekwoon groaned with his head hung between his shoulders. 'You don't deserve someone like me.'

 

Hongbin pulled him closer, panting with all his skin dampened by desire. There was no telling if he had heard Taekwoon, or if he even cared.

 

____________________

 

The cigarette tasted better than Hongbin thought any cigarette tasted before. It was early dawn and he slept no more than three hours, but his heart beat palpable in the tips of his fingers and he felt pure, he felt ready for the two hour flight that lay ahead of him.

 

Dawn rose grey that morning, cloudbursts thin and wispy overhead, but just enough to blot out the autumn sun. Taekwoon lay asleep in the hotel bed, the comforter low on his bare stomach. Hongbin pushed the tendrils of hair off Taekwoon's smoothed brow, and told him, 'You don't have to leave anytime soon.'

 

Taekwoon didn't stir.

 

'I'm checked in until evening, but I don't think you'll stay that long. I ordered you breakfast though, and it should be here soon.'

 

On the table beside the bed, there lay a note Hongbin was wary of leaving, but he imagined it would feel awful to wake in someone else's hotel room without any sign that they had been there with you.

 

As he clipped his gold pin to the lapel of his uniform top, his carry-on following him as if it was a tired old dog, Hongbin left the hotel room with its dingy morning light filtering through large, opened windows. There was an odd accompanying pang as he closed the door behind himself.

 

The note on the side-table contained his cell number, and the hotel where he would be staying while in Osaka. Written in haste at the very bottom, for he hadn't been sure if he should be so daring, was:

 

_I've left my shirt in the bathroom._

_It would be nice if you could keep it for me until I return_.

_yours, Hongbin_

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

**T H E   S I L K   L E A F**

  

 

It had been raining for two days. A sweeping wind blew northbound and with it came the tail end of the rainstorm. A smattering of water like mercury pattering against the closed windows of Jaehwan's apartment; he smoked in a chair by the bedside, puffs of nicotine air billowing like cloud above his head. On the coverlet lay his phone, untouched and chiming—for he had received two voice messages the night before last and had yet to listen to them. He thought, because the numbers seemed strange, as if they were from out of town, the messages must be from someone he didn't want to hear from. For this reason, he sat staring, wondering, at the black screen that lit up momentarily before blinking out again.

 

A tremendous spark of lightning flashed, illuminating the road of Garak-ro, normally a grey area among light where hues of green and blue transpired from city buildings blocks away. Tonight, Garak-ro was alight with storm, the rain trickling to soft dime-sized pellets that wet the cuff of Jaehwan's sleeve as he ashed his cigarette out the window. As the lightning sounded again, he thought it was almost as if he lived somewhere alive.

 

His phone chimed again and blood boiled curious as he leaned over to examine the screen. It had been days since he last saw anyone, and much longer still since he had last bedded someone, but as the unfamiliar numbers scrolled across his phone, Jaehwan's heart gave a steady leap. It was as if he knew, without really knowing, who it was that had left them.

 

He took the phone and lit another cigarette; he clicked on the speaker and listened, disinterested, as the automatic tone of his message box informed him that the first message had come in at 6:13 the day before last. There was an awful crackle of static that gave way to a tinny voice that was hard to pinpoint who it could be. The reception was so bad that Jaehwan, straining to hear in the cool dark of his apartment, could only make out a few jumbled words— _missed called. . . Not sure but. . . You._ He clicked out of the message before it was complete, unable to find the patience to decipher it.

 

The next one was louder, so striking in difference it startled him at once. He knew right away it was Hongbin, though all he said was _it's me again_. Could Hongbin really be calling again after such a long time? It pained Jaehwan in a hollow way, like being reminded of a past mistake so distantly remembered it seemed to have happened years before; he thought of clicking out of this message too. But then Hongbin told him, in a fragile tone as if he had only then understood there would be no response to his jarred, jet-lag calls: _I won't call anymore, unless you call me first. But I don't think you will_.

 

Jaehwan deleted the message as he ashed on the carpet, warm flecks of grey debris falling lightly on his bare toes. The automatic voice informed him at once that his message box was cleared.

 

The silence came weighty and terribly pungent in that small apartment, rainfall tapering off into a slight drizzle that stopped almost as suddenly as it had began. He thought the night could go one of two ways then: he could lie in bed with a mountain of cigarette butts collecting in his glass ashtray, watching the old SONY television he kept in the corner. Or he could call one of the dozens of numbers in his phone, all belonging to men he hadn't reached out to in weeks. There was quite a few he knew would show up without a moments hesitation and many others that would take him out of the dreary dampness of Garak-ro to anywhere he wished to go for the night. But neither of these options weighed comfortably in his gut. After all, he had spent many hours distancing himself from the numerous one-night stands and evening flings that to go back and rekindle old feelings would be as troublesome as spending the night alone.

 

So he rose slowly, like a man beyond his years, and deftly stepped into old tennis shoes beside the front door. White raincoat slung over his small shoulders. He would go to the bars, he decided; he would either drink by himself or find someone to share a beer with, but he wouldn't bring them home. Because he was cold and he was lonely, and nothing good could come of that—for nothing good ever had.

 

On the streets where water rushed in dirty waves down into the gutters, Jaehwan realized how stupid it was to make such a decision, especially when he was so sober. But he thought if he could remind himself, if he managed to stick by someone who wasn't charming nor handsome then he could easily evade a body in his bed tonight. As he stepped out of the damp coolness of Garak-ro and into a bar that glowed with hues of pink over brown enamel floors, he realized it wasn't going to be so difficult anyway. The bar was empty, save for a couple at a back table, so far from the rest of the bar it seemed they were no more apart of it than the eerie sallow glow of the streetlamps outside.

 

He took up at the bar top, the stool cold beneath him, and ordered a Cass Light. It tasted like water, but for the price he paid he couldn't have expected more.

 

'Slow night,' he said to the bartender.

 

'You just missed the rush. It should pick back up within the hour.'

 

'This late?' But it was only a quarter after eleven, and on a Saturday at that. Jaehwan thought it might be because of the rain; no one wanted to wander drunk in the wet dark in the middle of Songpa. Even he wouldn't do it without a proper escort.

 

He thought for a moment the bartender would stick around. Perhaps they could talk about the weather—there wasn't really much else they could discuss—but he left without a word after that. In an attempt to appear nonchalant, Jaehwan drew out his phone and clicked through old messages from days past, but there was nothing important to read over again and nothing of interest to reply to. He wondered if he had always been this lonesome and he hadn't noticed, or had he simply always known but hadn't cared until now.

 

A song played from the jukebox he had heard once from a movie; an English song that sang of [California](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhZULM69DIw)* and though he had never given it much thought, he wondered if it was warmer there, a little dryer, a nicer place to be when all one wanted to be was with someone else. He feared he may start talking to the beer bottles if the night went on this way.

 

Then like an apparition, Heaven-sent if Heaven was real, someone touched his elbow.

 

'Don't you work at The Silk Leaf?'

 

At once startled—for where had this person come from if not from thin air itself?—Jaehwan peered deftly into a young face that watched him in return. He was immediately familiar, though without the usual royal blue garb and police cap that overshadowed his broad face, Jaehwan had a hard time placing the name.

 

'Officer Han,' he explained with a hand held out, limp but strong as Jaehwan took it into his own. 'I come in a couple times a week.'

 

'Yeah —I remember you.' Jaehwan flushed. 'You order the tofu stew and the, uh, the coffee. Black.'

 

Officer Han had a terribly charming smile. This was something Jaehwan had noticed long before tonight, but as he cracked a grin now it seemed as if a chasm had opened up across his face, one of pure light.

 

'Do you remember everyone's orders?' he asked, and then, almost in the same breath: 'You can call me Sanghyuk, by the way. We don't have to be so formal, right?'

 

'I guess not. . .' Jaehwan sipped his beer tentatively. He watched as Sanghyuk drew a stool up beside his own, thinking how doomed he was, how superfluous his decision had been. Officer Han was more than charming. He was wonderfully kind with a smile that would kill Jaehwan if he looked for too long.

 

Doomed, he thought. Utterly, utterly doomed.

 

'Sorry if I came at you weird, you know, I didn't mean to just. . . pop up.' He grimaced as if embarrassed and told the bartender that he would take an OB Blue. 'It's been really quiet in here, so I was surprised to see you. Because I never really see anyone that I know—or. . . well, you know what I mean, don't you?'

 

Jaehwan smiled. 'Yes, I know.'

 

He thought it kind of incredible—in an overtly strange way—that for weeks the man he served lukewarm coffee to was sitting beside him, not in his police uniform but in red plaid shirtsleeves that embraced his shoulders in such a way Jaehwan wished to reach out and touch him, to know if he was as firm as he appeared. He felt giddy with excitement. How many times a week, he wondered, had he and officer Han shared each other's company without a word uttered between them?

 

His voice a whispering breath, for he doubted he could sound as confident as he wished to, Jaehwan said: 'We don't really get a chance to talk.' Then, 'How have you been?'

 

'I've been alright, a little busy I guess, because —Well, you heard what happened, didn't you?'

 

Jaehwan had. Of course, he had. The murder on Thursday night had, in such a profound way, uprooted Songpa into a kind of frenzy. Shops had closed early Friday night and had opened late, as if they feared the nightly hours; from twilight to dawn, the world was a ghost town. Just that morning Jaehwan hadn't had to report to work until after 9—much later than he had ever clocked in before.

 

'Don't overwork yourself.' He watched his hands, the condensation that collected at the bottom of the beer bottle. 'Be careful too. It'd be a shame if something happened to you.'

 

He didn't dare look at Sanghyuk, but he could feel the weight of his gaze. It was almost warm against the side of his face, warm like an embrace Jaehwan wished he could lean into. His insides coiled terribly, an itch formed in the very center of his palms and he wondered absently if Sanghyuk would mind being touched.

 

'Don't worry,' Sanghyuk told him. 'I'll be as careful as I can be. I just graduated from academy a couple months ago, anyway, and so I'm in the probational period. I don't do much,' he admitted. 'I follow my superiors around, kind of just watch them, really.'

 

'That doesn't sound like a lot of fun.'

 

'It's alright,' he shrugged. 'I don't mind.'

 

They drank their beers in a comfortable silence as the [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGJTaP6anOU)* on the jukebox changed. It was a drastic change, one that caught Sanghyuk's attention almost immediately. But if he knew the tune—another English song Jaehwan couldn't quite make sense of—he never said a word.

 

'Can I ask something?' Jaehwan inquired. He shrank away as Sanghyuk came forward, feeling as foolish as he felt warm; almost burning with sudden daring. 'Why haven't you ever come talk to me at work? Sometimes we're the only people in there, and it gets a little boring. But you're always in the back by yourself.'

 

It was then Jaehwan concluded that Sanghyuk was awfully handsome when he blushed. His cheeks filled rosy with red splotches beneath his eyes; the tips of his ears pinked beneath the blue glow of the beer signs.

 

'I've always wanted to,' he said. 'But when I'm on duty I really can't talk to anyone. Not the way that I would wanna talk with you.'

 

'What way is that?'

 

'Ah,' he laughed. 'Like this, I guess.' He leaned forward as he took a drink. 'Why don't you have coffee with me one of these times? I'll come in and if no one is there, you can sit with me. If you want.'

 

'I don't like coffee,' Jaehwan said, rather glumly, as if there wasn't another drink in the world they could have together. He watched as Sanghyuk's hand moved closer across the bar-top, calloused fingers rough against the back of his palm. Where Sanghyuk touched embers sparked below Jaehwan's skin.

 

He bristled with excitement as Sanghyuk threaded their fingers together. 'We could have tea, though. My cousin makes this really great lychee tea. Maybe you'll like it and you can stop drinking black coffee.' He offered a smile. 'It's not good for you, didn't you know?'

 

'I've heard,' Sanghyuk murmured. 'Do you work tomorrow?'

 

'Yeah, but not until the afternoon.'

 

'I'll come in then. We can have tea.'

 

'Is that a promise?'

 

Sanghyuk smiled; the chasm opened up and swallowed Jaehwan whole. 'Sure. I promise.' He was close enough now that his breath ghosted over Jaehwan's face, warm and smelling faintly of beer.

 

'You're not leaving now, are you?' Jaehwan asked. 'We're making plans like you're leaving.'

 

'Not if you want me to stay.'

 

It was a silly thing to become flustered by. How often had Jaehwan heard such things from men far smoother than Sanghyuk? It didn't seem to matter, for his heart pounded mercilessly between his ribs, blood flooded his face like a torrent of light, and as Sanghyuk leaned further in, Jaehwan could think of little else than the bow of Sanghyuk's mouth. Up close, his lips were perfect.

 

Panicked, Jaehwan stood abruptly. 'It's getting late.' He leaned over the counter and asked the bartender for the check. Then turning to Sanghyuk, he said, 'Because what happened at Bambino's, I feel a little weird being out late right now.'

 

Sanghyuk nodded. 'I understand.'

 

'I know you're off duty and you probably couldn't do a great deal even if you weren't but—' Jaehwan peered over his shoulder to the rest of the bar. When had they become the last two there, and why was there something ineffably intimate about being the only two people in a restaurant?

 

'Could you walk me home?' Jaehwan dared. 'I live up the road, not very far.'

 

'If you want me to.' Sanghyuk rose alongside him. 'I'd love to.' He told the bartender he'd like his check as well and to include Jaehwan's on his tab.

 

'Don't be stupid,' Jaehwan told him. 'I can pay for my own beer.'

 

'It isn't stupid.'

 

'It is, a little.'

 

Sanghyuk sucked his lower lip. It seemed in the time it took Jaehwan to pocket his wallet, his eyes had grown double in size. Color poured into his face and made him appear younger, vibrant in the sallow light of the bar. He guided Jaehwan by hand, like an escort in a movie: strong, stony faced with a warm exterior that made Jaehwan want to melt into him. But there was something indisputably different now as they stepped out of the bar and onto the damp streets of Songpa.

 

'I really don't live far,' Jaehwan told him carefully, 'and if you don't wanna stay once we get there, that's alright.'

 

'I want to.'

 

'But?'

 

'But, what?' Sanghyuk tilted his head much the way a dog might if it had heard a strange sound. 'I want to, that's all.'

 

Sanghyuk was nervous, Jaehwan realized. Incredibly nervous—so much so that his hand was trembling as they walked down Garak-ro. It was a mighty good thing that he lived so close; he didn't think Sanghyuk would survive a long walk through dark roads, meandering parked cars like carcasses on the roadsides. He stumbled over puddles and splashed dirty water across his cotton shoes, then smiled in an attempt to appear peaceful. But Jaehwan recognized the saturated sparkle within Sanghyuk's eyes. How, if he was to press his body a little closer, Sanghyuk would balk.

 

They kicked off their shoes in unison beside the door as Jaehwan showed them inside. The room smelled faintly of cigarettes and laundry detergent. It had stopped raining, but the windows were still speckled with water. Odd shaped shadows came in through the window, and it was as if the apartment had grown sickly with some spotted disease.

 

'Can I tell you something?' said Sanghyuk. He followed Jaehwan closely, with a wavering slow crawl, to the bed. It so happened Jaehwan's apartment was so small in size that the double mattress he slept upon was set up nicely in the middle of the living area. The television was clicked on, and suddenly there was light thrown across floral white walls.

 

Sanghyuk sank onto the mattress as his hand found purchase on Jaehwan's thigh. He admitted, 'I only ever go to The Silk Leaf when I know you're going to be there.'

 

It was impossible not to smile.

 

'I always want to come talk to you, I wasn't lying about that. So when I saw you tonight, I. . . well, I sorta jumped at the opportunity to talk to you, and I'm sorry about that.'

 

Jaehwan took Sanghyuk's face between his palms. His cheeks were cold and the bones within them sharp as blades and equally strong. 'There's nothing to be sorry about.'

 

'I'm terribly nervous.'

 

'I can tell.'

 

'I don't wanna fuck it up.'

 

Jaehwan pulled away. 'What do you mean?'

 

It was awful how pained Sanghyuk appeared. It was as if at any moment he would erupt and Jaehwan would be left alone with bits and fragments of a broken boy.

 

'I don't only want to sleep with you,' Sanghyuk said after a slight pause. He sighed deeply as if in attempt to gather himself. 'I've wanted to talk to you for such a long time that I would hate to think this is all —That sleeping with you is all that we. . .'

 

'Oh.' Jaehwan pulled him closer. 'You like me.'

 

'Of course I like you. You're lovely.' He leaned forward then, with his arms encircling Jaehwan's back. It happened quickly, in spellbinding motion that even if he wanted to Jaehwan would have never been able to wriggle away. But as it was: blood rushed painfully through his head, leaving his body light as if he had been drained.

 

Sanghyuk was a gentle kisser. His mouth was soft and at once sweet; he parted his lips and took Jaehwan's tongue into his mouth with fluid ease it was impossible to imagine he was nervous at all. He kissed with his eyes closed and his hands trembling against the knobs of Jaehwan's spine. But when he pulled away, eyes darting open and the pupils within expanded so widely he appeared comically alert, he was anxious once again.

 

'I have to tell you—honestly,' Jaehwan whispered. 'I've never been good at relationships with people. I'm kind of terrible at them.' He rubbed the pad of his thumb across Sanghyuk's swollen lower lip. 'But I can try, OK? With you, I can try.'

 

'You don't have to make any promises. I only want to see you again.'

 

'Well,' Jaehwan looked out the speckled window of his lonely flat which now felt swarming with light; emotion so giddy like a hornet's nest on fire. 'You know where I am all the time now,' he smiled. 'Don't you?'

 

'I do.'

 

'So you can come see me.'

 

'Anytime?'

 

'Yes,' Jaehwan said. 'Anytime you want to. You promised to see me tomorrow, so you can't forget that.'

 

'I won't.'

 

Jaehwan allowed himself to fall forward, to become nothing but melted bone between Sanghyuk's hands. He was kissed and kissed deeply with an astounding realization so sharp he felt it in the tips of his toes, as if something had reached out and stung him. He was, in some way so strangely far off—for he hadn't felt this way in quite some time—floating. He soared with his head in the clouds and his heart in his mouth, suffocating on the breath Sanghyuk pushed into him with every lap of his tongue, his lips parting like waves Jaehwan braced himself against.

 

He floated higher and fell harder, feeling every pulse of his heart as Sanghyuk shifted closer. His body covered Jaehwan's own and he felt stronger, sturdier, than Jaehwan could have ever imagined he would. And as his shirt was pulled from his body and Sanghyuk's buttons popped out of place, as they melded together in an awkward embrace that felt entirely right, Jaehwan feared he would burst at the seams.

 

____________________

 

The silence exploded by a shrill cry of the telephone and Sanghyuk found himself startled awake but unable to move. It was impossible to tell what time it was. The sky hung incredulously black as if God had spilled ink across that low hanging troposphere; bleak, and ugly. It had started to rain again.

 

There came another cry of the telephone and it was then Sanghyuk understood it was his own phone calling mercilessly in the dark. He reached blindly for the misty blue glow of his Samsung, somewhere on the bedside, but stopped short as he took into interest the queerly unfamiliar table his phone was set upon. A cloth shade lamp teetered at the edge, as if about to fall off. It wasn't his room, he realized very suddenly. His mouth was painstakingly dry; skin bristling with concern—had he managed to get himself into another stupid situation? like the time he'd bedded a married man by mistake?

 

It was then, all at once like gulping air after a free fall into the sea, that Sanghyuk realized where he was and with whom. His heart lurched forward as if about to pop out of his chest; he snuggled Jaehwan closer, his arms about his waist. He smelled of oleanders, of sex and musk, all of it mingling like poetry in Sanghyuk's sleep swollen memory.

 

He let the phone continue to ring until it died away into white noise. He felt Jaehwan come deeper into him, his face pressed hard into his chest; his head bobbed lightly with the rise of Sanghyuk's breath.

 

'Aren't you gonna answer that?' Jaehwan murmured tiredly.

 

'I probably should.' But by then, the phone had stopped ringing.

 

'What time is it?'

 

'I don't know. The sun's not up yet and it's raining again.'

 

With a shove, one of little force, Jaehwan pushed Sanghyuk onto his back. It was then he placed his cheek firm against the beating of his heart. 'It'll rain forever,' he said.

 

It was a peaceful moment. The apartment, entirely dark except for the stream of yellow light from the faraway streetlamps, was quiet as death. No sound came from the apartment above, nor the one below; it was as if the whole world slept on.

 

—then the phone rang again.

 

'Shit, I'm sorry—' Sanghyuk moved away, wishing he didn't have to. Jaehwan fell from his reach, but as Sanghyuk leaned far over toward the trilling of his phone, he noticed how Jaehwan moved with him.

 

'Hullo,' Sanghyuk murmured, drowsy and feeling more tired by the minute.

 

He had no sooner spoke when his superior—a man named Nam who had a knack for yelling no matter the situation—demanded to know: 'Where the hell are you?'

 

'I'm. . . I'm at a friend's place. What's wrong?'

 

'There's a domestic disturbance. The call came in a couple minutes ago, and I need you here with me.'

 

'Right this moment?'

 

'You haven't reported to a domestic call yet, right?' He didn't await a response. 'Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, just get home and get changed. Meet me at—' There was the rustling of pages, a muffled curse that was almost comical. 'There's a complex in northern Gangnam called Indigo Springs. Meet me there out front.'

 

'How will I know where you are?'

 

Irritably, but not without a touch of warmth, 'Look for the flashing lights— _alright_?'

 

The line clicked off.

 

Sanghyuk, raised onto his elbows, sat motionless and slightly jarred. He stared at the growing shadows across the carpet; speckles of rain falling like shards of glass in another realm. He was shirtless, he was sticky with sweat; Jaehwan cuddled near again, his face flushed and warm against Sanghyuk's chest.

 

'You have to go,' he said, reserved, as if coming to terms with this newfound understanding.

 

'I do, yeah. It's a domestic call or something—I don't really know what. But my superior. . .' Sanghyuk unfurled himself from the tangle of bed sheets and found the apartment suddenly cold. 'Sorry about all this. I wish I could stay the night.'

 

'What time is it anyway? Did you check?'

 

The clock on the stove, feet away, flashed florescent red numbers: 4:39. Too early to be awake.

 

'About 5.'

 

Sanghyuk felt a little funny as he grappled in the dark for his clothes; for his head ached and his muscles were tired, legs shaking as he stepped into stone-washed blue jeans, but his heart felt full. And as he looked over in the pale light and saw the barest outline of Jaehwan curled deeply below the blankets, his hair disarrayed about his head, his heart only swelled larger.

 

'Remember,' he told the other, 'I'm coming to see you today.'

 

'When?'

 

'Well, I hope not too late. The afternoon, right? Around 2.'

 

Jaehwan stretched, all his joints popping like small pellets against glass; he yawned as he said, 'That sounds good.' Then, with the sound of smile in his tone, 'I'll walk you out.'

 

'No.' Sanghyuk laid a gentle hand against Jaehwan's chest. He brushed the hair out of his eyes, comforting small touches that Jaehwan leaned into. 'Go back to sleep. I can see myself out.'

 

He stepped out into a concrete hall he could hardly remember coming down the night before—had he been so keen to follow Jaehwan home that he hadn't even known where they were?—and it was like passing through a dream. The surroundings were different, and his body was heavy; thoughts replayed first slowly, then all at once, of Jaehwan's hands caressing his chest; Jaehwan, with his mouth bitten closed as Sanghyuk had thrust into him; Jaehwan, everywhere at once, with his head tipped back and the pale column of his throat exposed. Had that all really happened?

 

He felt childishly giddy as he tumbled into the smelly backseat of an orange cab, his stomach alight with flutters; he wished, desperately, to be back in Jaehwan's room, to be in his bed where the coverlet smelled of day old cologne. He was sleepy and growing sleepier still as the cab dragged on, pearl white street signs glowing through the thinning rain, and the cab's radio turned up loud to [something](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvzNeh4Mq1o)* he thought he had heard before. It was a song his mother had played once or twice; awfully old, but curiously soothing as he sat, comatose, in that uncomfortable backseat, moving further from the apartment on Garak-ro. Further than he wanted to be at that very moment.

 

/

 

Bob Dylan played out an open window so far overhead it was as if it came from the sky; police lights flared cold across the damp front lawn of Indigo Springs. How fitting it seemed: the complex thrown in blue light as if by some per-arrangement of another world.

 

Sanghyuk stumbled blind over the sidewalk, his police cap fitted into place and the royal blue of his button-up so dark it appeared black. Officer Nam awaited him by the entrance, like a seraph in his black garb: long raincoat, a starched white shirt underneath; he looked ready to pass out, so drawn there on the side of the building.

 

He looked Sanghyuk over, disinterested. 'Took you look enough. Didn't think you'd make it.'

 

'I told you, sir. I was with a friend.'

 

'Fix that collar,' he said pointedly. Then, without another word, he lead Sanghyuk to an enclosed stairwell, past the elevators that stood open and empty, on the ground floor.

 

Officer Nam was a tall man, much taller than Sanghyuk who, for most of his life, had been the largest boy in school. Years of standing stooped over with shoulders pointed inward, huddled far in the back of the class pictures as not to block any one person out. He'd been clumsy in sports as he was equally clumsy in life: skirting around roadsides and toppling over the slightest pothole. To be with officer Nam was to feel safe, to be at home by his broadened shoulders—for sometimes, more often than not, Sanghyuk felt a slight sting when required to take a call on his own.

 

'Listen—' Nam stopped short of a door left ajar. Room 213D; it overlooked the city restaurants, standing tall on the fifth floor of a much larger building. 'When we get in there, you're going to want to ask a lot of questions, you're going to want to stare. Don't fucking do it, alright?'

 

Sanghyuk nodded obediently.

 

'It's a lot messier than we thought it'd be—here, move away from the door a moment, yeah—come here.' He pulled Sanghyuk by the scruff of the neck, their heads leaned together like men with a secret. 'It wasn't a domestic assault like it was called in. This happens sometimes, right, the neighbors hear some scuffling, they get all worked up, start calling about domestic disputes. I told you to fix that collar, Han.'

 

Hurriedly, unable to look away from Nam's austere glare, Sanghyuk flattened his collar with the top button clasped.

 

'Since neither the victim nor the assailant called in the report, chances are it's going to be a difficult case. As it is, the victim—' he took out an onionskin paper from the inner pocket of his raincoat— 'Jung Leo. He isn't cooperating at all.'

 

'Jung Leo?'

 

'Yes. Do you know him?'

 

'No.' Sanghyuk massaged the nape of his neck, feeling silly all at once. 'Just an uncommon name, I guess? Never met a Leo before.'

 

'It's the name on his driver's license, it's the name we're going with. Look,' Nam pulled roughly at the cuff of Sanghyuk's sleeve. Further from the apartment, he dropped his voice to a bare murmur. 'This guy, Leo, we don't have much on him. Minor things, uh, concealed weapon—unloaded, a couple drug charges from when he was a kid. Nothing to get worked up over, —Are you listening? Despite not having much on him, there's a chance he could be linked to one of the street gangs around Seoul. Shin Sungrok, you know who he is?'

 

'I've heard of him, but I haven't heard a lot.'

 

'He's bad news. Been after him a while. Look—' Nam had a terrible habit of using his hands. He'd grab shirtsleeves, napes; squeeze until a purpling mark was left behind. He would shake an officer loose without meaning to, and he was doing it now. 'When we get in there, just keep to yourself but keep an ear open. This Leo is really soft spoken, very calm, so you gotta stay close.'

 

Then, by the door, with his own cap placed low over his eyes, Nam whispered, 'Just promise me you won't fucking stare. It's bad in there.'

 

/

 

Walking into apartment 213D was like crossing a threshold of blackened debris; a smoke screen of toxins one would be wary of breathing in. By the door lay a lambskin lampshade cast aside as if unwanted, bits of glass speckled the polyester carpet like light glinting off morning dew. Cassette tapes thrown across the floors like the innards of some untamed beast as a radio—old fashioned, almost antique—perched at the very edge of a glass table where a large, unsightly, crack had formed. There was no more than ten officers already at the scene; some dawdling beside tipped over mugs of cold coffee on the kitchen floor, others examining the victim—and though Jung Leo was obscured from view, a set of broad shoulders turned toward Sanghyuk's watchful eye, it was obvious by the small crowd encircling him he was in as much a dire state as Nam had suggested.

 

No more than an arm's length away was the familiar set of officer Nam's broad body calling like a beacon to Sanghyuk's nervous, twitching fingers; but he knew there was nothing he could do. He was a graduate now, and no matter the length of the probational period, he was expected to handle the scene as well as any other officer. Though his hands ached to grab Nam's shoulder, to beg of him— _what do I do?—_ Sanghyuk found himself following the trail of broken debris like a yellow brick road all his own.

 

'I don't want that—' said a small crackle of a voice.

 

'Sir, we're only trying to make sure you're comfortable.'

 

'Yes, but I don't want it.'

 

From the very edge of his periphery, Sanghyuk saw the batting motion of Leo's arms as he turned down an offered blanket. An officer drew nearer and it was then he rose up on shaking legs, his whole boy doubled over as if it pained him to move at all.

 

'I _said_ I don't _want_ it. Do you _understand_?'

 

'Of course, sir. I'm sorry.'

 

The officer was a woman deemed unfamiliar; her hair sat atop her head in a tight bun, eyes downcast and growing distant as Leo pushed through the crowd they had created around him. It was then he turned, body moving in strict cadence like bones without joints, and Sanghyuk saw for the first time what a victim of assault looked like.

 

' _Jesus_. . .'

 

With a blush like searing heat below his skin, Sanghyuk darted his eyes thoughtfully away. But it didn't matter where he looked—blank vanilla walls abound, and a bookshelf filled with VHS tapes—there was nothing to take his mind off the raw, mangled way Leo had looked at him.

 

'Sir—' Sanghyuk touched officer Nam's shoulder. 'Shouldn't we get him to a hospital?'

 

'He doesn't want to go.'

 

'But'—was it acceptable to allow someone to bleed the way he was?—'he looks awfully bad.'

 

'We can't make people do things we want them to do, even if it's for their own good.' Peering from beneath the low bill of his cap, Nam regarded Sanghyuk momentarily. 'Anyway, the medical examiner will be here shortly. Why don't you go talk to him? Offer him a cigarette, see how he's doing.'

 

'Well, alright, but I don't smoke.'

 

'You—' Exasperated, and a little irritated, officer Nam thrust his hand into the inner pocket of his raincoat and produced an open pack of Kools. Sanghyuk took the cigarettes like a quiet paperboy accepting his meager pay; he examined it, sure that there must be more to it than this single cardboard box, then decided: it didn't much matter.

 

Leo had drawn into himself beside the bookshelf, his back arched forward and crucially slumped. He moved stiff and gangling, with an odd gait about him, as if his legs couldn't bend on their own. Sanghyuk was sure it must have felt like death every time he breathed.

 

'How are you feeling?' Sanghyuk inquired, feeling terribly stupid. He stood with the pack of Kools heavy in his left hand, awaiting a response that never came.

 

Awkwardly, he offered the cigarettes. 'Do you want one?'

 

Leo regarded him quietly. 'No.'

 

'You don't smoke? Neither do I.'

 

'Then why do you have cigarettes?'

 

'Well. . .' Sanghyuk laughed hoarsely; it was a sharp laugh that embarrassed him greatly. 'I don't know, really.' He looked over his shoulder toward the other officers, all of whom seemed busy with something or other, though really it was as if they were all standing around a blank room, avoiding the mass hysteria of fallen debris and broken lampshades; they scribbled on their pads of paper, determined to forget the crime at hand.

 

'Do you want anything?' Sanghyuk asked, still looking over his shoulder. 'Coffee, maybe? Or a towel? For your mouth.'

 

'A towel,' he said.

 

So Sanghyuk tiptoed over broken glass that crunched beneath his feet like autumn leaves out to dry, to find a towel among the carnage of the kitchen, but there wasn't one. He trailed through the rooms until he came to the bathroom. A room so virtually untouched it was as if detached from the rest of the apartment. The walls were soft with lilac tint, green towels hung over a metal rod with a stack of small clothes beneath the sink. He took one—the darkest he could find; a deep burgundy among pastels of ivory and blue—and ran it under warm water.

 

'Here you go,' he said upon return. It was surprising how instinctively he wanted to lean in and touch the towel to Leo's broken bottom lip. 'Have you thought about going to a hospital? You'll need stitches, or else that's gonna heal pretty badly.'

 

'You've all been saying that.'

 

It was as he took the towel that for the first time that night Leo looked up and into Sanghyuk's eager face. He balked gently. 'You're just a kid. What are you doing here?'

 

'I might look young, sir, but I can promise you that I graduated the academy, about 3 months ago—'

 

Leo waved a hand, effectively waving away Sanghyuk's words. He didn't care; this much was painstakingly obvious.

 

It was impossible to tell due to the dark color of the cloth how much blood it was collecting, but as Leo continued to fold the towel into itself, his fingers started coming back stained with red; at first only lightly, and then darker and darker.

 

Sanghyuk sucked his lower lip. 'You really ought to go to the hospital.' He stumbled as Leo glared up at him, eyes like daggers thrown in the dark. 'I mean, just because you're bleeding so much. Like I said you won't heal the right way, and well, it'll probably always hurt—or at least hurt for a while if you don't get it closed up right away.'

 

'Your concern flatters me,' he deadpanned. 'Listen—' Leo noticed the blood on his fingers, and with a distasteful grunt, dropped the towel on the bookshelf. 'Don't take this the wrong way alright? But,' he motioned for Sanghyuk to come closer, and with his mouth near Sanghyuk's ear, Leo told him: 'I hate cops.'

 

He pulled away rather pleased with himself; color blotted his cheeks like rouge. 'Nothing against you. But if you wanna do something for me'—Sanghyuk nodded, hopeful—'then why don't you leave me alone?'

 

'Oh, I—' Sanghyuk felt wholly pitiful in that dreary apartment; suddenly he understood why everyone seemed so enclosed with themselves. 'Of course, sir.'

 

He drifted away with hands far into his pockets, feeling odd among oddities; glass fragments stuck to the soles of his shoes, a blot of red bloomed ugly on the tan carpets—blood, he realized, from Leo's nose, or perhaps his mouth.

 

Sanghyuk wondered briefly what the assailant looked like. Had it been a fair fight? Was there a man trudging about the city with an equally maimed face? Leo was a burly man, even Sanghyuk could see, though he stood a head taller. Was it possible they had discussed something of importance before the outbreak, or had they simply come to packing blows before words were spoken?

 

'Here—' Sanghyuk tapped the pack of Kools against officer's Nam's wide back. 'He didn't want one.'

 

'Did he say anything to you?'

 

'Not really, no.' Sanghyuk paused, then inquired: 'When is the medical examiner getting here?'

 

'I told you, Han, shortly. It's hard to say.'

 

There was nothing left for Sanghyuk to do then. He followed the traipsing gait of other officer's, attempting to peer over shoulders at small note pads scribbled with nonsensical declarations. Nothing added up, and there was nothing to be done, for the victim refused to report his assailant; and without a proper description of the man, there were no leads.

 

/

 

A quarter to 6, the medical team arrived, clad in suits of rumpled cotton. A man with a tie too short for his tall torso hovered over Leo like a blackened cloud, gloved hands smoothing over blood clotted wounds. They must have touched something awfully sensitive, for Leo pulled away with a start. His was a striking flinch with hands raised as if about to topple the medic over. Sanghyuk turned away, embarrassed for having watched, and waited, impossibly quiet, by the bookshelf.

 

The blood soaked cloth lay in a pool of murky water; satinwood now terribly stained. He took the cloth and rinsed it in the bathroom, then left it to dry over the side of the tub.

 

____________________

 

Jaehwan had woken that morning with the astute feeling of having forgotten something. He startled awake the way a flare might spark from the flint of a lighter; sitting there, in the milky light of a rainy Sunday morning, he realized in no time at all that it was Sanghyuk he was searching for. Hadn't it been a dream, he had wondered: waking in the middle of the night to say goodbye? As he sat in the dark, his cold glare fixed on the blank television screen, it was clear it hadn't been a dream. His hopes of waking with arms draped loosely about him were crushed at once. It was with a heavy heart, and a terribly ill-tempered hangover, that Jaehwan traipsed barefoot and shirtless through his small apartment, hunting—though discretely—for any sign that Sanghyuk had been there the night before. He had, of course, turned up empty-handed.

 

/

 

It was more than 5 hours later that Jaehwan was leaned over the cash counter at The Silk Leaf where the dining room lay open and empty like something dead. The television bracketed above the coke station was an old piece, outdated and in old technicolor; a film played where grass flared the color of emeralds, budding flowers of translucent pink scattered on a high wind. Jaehwan watched thoughtfully, chin cradled within his palm.

 

It was after 2—closer to 3—when the entrance door jingled languidly with incoming company; and there Sanghyuk stood, his police cap held politely in his hands.

 

'Hullo,' he grinned. 'Sorry I'm a little late.'

 

'That's alright.' Jaehwan righted himself, feeling achy all over as his heart beat tremulous within his ears. He thought himself deaf as he grappled with his nerves. 'How was it this morning?'

 

'Bad.'

 

'Bad?'

 

'Well,' Sanghyuk laid his hat on the counter. Leaned forward, he shrugged. 'I guess it wasn't _too_ terrible, but it was unpleasant. The victim, he—' He stopped. 'I don't think I'm supposed to tell you about this stuff.'

 

'That's OK, you don't have to.'

 

They mirrored one another across the counter, the register between them. Jaehwan fiddled with his fingers, palms growing sweaty as he watched the way Sanghyuk reached for him. Then, without warning, Sanghyuk lurched forward and kissed him clumsily on the mouth.

 

'I'm not supposed to do that either,' he said, eyes gleaming with a smile.

 

'So why'd you do it?' Jaehwan teased.

 

'Because nobody's here. What have you been doing all day?'

 

'This.'

 

'Just this? Standing here?'

 

'Watching the television.'

 

Sanghyuk pestered, lightly, 'And you said my job didn't sound like fun.'

 

'It doesn't. But I never said mine was.'

 

'Well,' Sanghyuk had started to fidget with a stack of napkins on the counter. He flipped through them slowly, as if flipping through a stack of cards; he seemed as nervous as Jaehwan felt.

 

Then, with a rush of color like blooming heat across his face, Sanghyuk asked: 'Did you make that tea you talked about?'

 

'I did, but it's cold now. I'll have to re-heat it. Luckily though,' Jaehwan left the counter, sweeping along the room with a brisk walk as if afraid he would trip over something imaginary. 'I waited to take my break until you got here.'

 

At the entrance, he turned over the OPEN sign so that it read CLOSED to any passersby. 'We have about an hour. We can have tea and something to eat, if you'd like. Or we can go somewhere else.'

 

'Here's just fine.'

 

'I thought you'd say that.' He stood a moment beside the door, autumn evening light filtering pale throughout the room. There was a slight gloom to it all: the empty tables and soundless kitchen; not an echo sounded, nor the scuffle of shoes across the glittering white of the tiles. Being there, with Sanghyuk watching coolly from the register, was like being in a closed off realm all their own. Jaehwan shuffled awkwardly across the room.

 

He said, 'Go get comfortable and I'll be right back.' But before he could slip away, Sanghyuk touched his elbow. His hand was large in the crook of Jaehwan's arm. 'What is it?'

 

'Nothing.' He leaned in and kissed Jaehwan again, bolder this time, with the faintest tremble to his lower lip. Then he left to the back of the restaurant where he so often sat alone at a double seating table away from the rest.

 

When Jaehwan came from the back, carrying a tray of cups with a small kettle between them, he placed it on the table, feeling silly and incredibly dull as he sat heavily in a chair cold beneath him.

 

'You're nervous,' Sanghyuk pointed out. 'I can see it in your face.' His foot touched Jaehwan's beneath the table. 'You don't have to be though, I'm not gonna say anything if you stumble.'

 

With a laugh, Jaehwan ducked his head low. Had he been so obvious? 'I told you. I'm not very good with relationships with people.'

 

'That's alright, you don't have to be.'

 

'One of us should be, shouldn't we?' He went on, smiling at Sanghyuk's lack of understanding: 'If we just sit here, being weird about it, then it's not gonna get any better. So one of us has to be good at relationships.'

 

'Is that what this is now?'

 

'No, don't be stupid.'

 

Sanghyuk laughed sharply; it was a loud, brazen laugh that was difficult to overlook. Jaehwan found himself smiling as he watched Sanghyuk pour the tea. He blew over the rim of his steaming cup and said, 'What about tonight? Do I get to see you tonight too?'

 

'If you want.'

 

'What will we do?'

 

'Well,' Jaehwan kicked the ground lightly. He was aware of Sanghyuk's foot toying with the cuff of his pant-leg. 'There's a new film at the cinema. Some action movie, you know, gunfights and cops.'

 

'You like those types of movies?'

 

'I don't really care,' Jaehwan shrugged. 'It's something to do.'

 

'Alright then. We'll see a movie.' He pondered, then asked: 'What about after?'

 

Alarmed, Jaehwan laughed, 'Are we gonna plan the whole night right now?'

 

'We don't have to. I'm only wondering.'

 

Jaehwan paused a long moment, the brim of his tea cup resting against his lower lip. Blowing across steam that dispersed like smoke, he said: 'Afterwards, you can decide what we do. I'll go wherever you take me.'

 

A silence fell over them; audacious, and so unlike the uncomfortable silences Jaehwan had been put through time and time again.

 

Sanghyuk's eyes sparkled, but there was no trace of a smile; only the barest of emotion flickering within watery eyes. 'Well'—he hooked his heel around the thin bone of Jaehwan's ankle—'if that would make you happy.'

 

/

 

It had been too long since the last date Jaehwan could remember going on that as he waited for Sanghyuk, perplexed and terribly anxious by the ticket booth, he suffered the horrible realization that he had forgotten his cigarettes as well as his wallet. His hands felt odd at his sides, hanging limp and useless as his throat constricted around the sudden need to smoke. He thought of bumming one off someone nearby, but the thought of approaching them, of asking someone whom he had never spoken to, made his palms itch with growing nerves.

 

'What's wrong?' Sanghyuk inquired, moments after he had arrived. He wore a sharp white button-up, starched and rough to the touch. He looked handsome with his hair parted to the side; his face broadened by the sallow lights of the marquee.

 

'Nothing,' Jaehwan told him. 'I forgot my cigarettes,' he relented, realizing Sanghyuk would not accept this answer. 'It's not a big deal.'

 

'Do you want to stop and buy some?'

 

'No, no, it's fine—'

 

'There's a little shop. Up the road.' Sanghyuk pointed with his thumb over his shoulder. 'I can run up there and—'

 

'Don't you listen?' He pulled Sanghyuk by the hand toward the entrance doors. 'We'll miss the start of the movie if we run all the way down there. I'll be _fine_.'

 

'Take this then.' Sanghyuk produced a pack of peppermint gum; so thoughtful, Jaehwan mused, biting back a quip. 'That way you won't be anxious during the film.'

 

'You've thought of everything.'

 

'Seems that way, doesn't it?' He smiled. 'Want something to eat?'

 

It was as they wandered the crowded theater—both of them tripping over one another in the dark, giggling about it with popcorn spilling over the rim of their shared bag—that Jaehwan realized he would rather be anywhere else. He wanted to be back in the comfort of his apartment with Sanghyuk beside him; he wanted to be in the cozy backseat of a city cab with the windows rolled down and the cab driver, so far off into his own world, posing as nothing more than a pawn in their nightly escapade; he wanted to hold Sanghyuk's hand and press his mouth to the fluttering pulse of his temple without having to bear the burden of watching some action-packed gunfight that meant nothing to him. But as it was, they were tucked between hordes of people, their knees pressed close together—was Sanghyuk as aware of this as Jaehwan was? Did he know that despite having divulged himself completely just the night before, this small touch sent sparkles down the knobs of Jaehwan's spine like ice water all along his nerves? There was no possible way of slipping out inconspicuously. Jaehwan slumped low in his seat; for he knew he would have to endure the next two hours, satisfied only by the press of Sanghyuk's leg and the flickering touches as their hands met on the armrest.

 

'You hated it,' Sanghyuk said as they left the theater. 'I saw your face, about halfway through, and you looked so bored.'

 

'Don't think too much.'

 

'Well, it's alright anyway,' he smiled. 'If the movie upset you so much, then wherever I decide we go now can only be better. Right?'

 

Jaehwan nodded, smiling as he turned away. 'To tell you the truth, there's nothing I really wanna do.'

 

'Oh?'

 

'Yeah, like maybe we shouldn't do anything. Just go home, or something.'

 

What light flickered over Sanghyuk's face blinked out in an instant. He opened his mouth several times, failing each time to say something intelligible, until finally he laughed—forcefully. 'Was the movie really so bad? I'm sorry.' He looked either way down the street, ostensibly for a cab. 'I'll get you a ride right now.' It was as if he was suddenly unable to look Jaehwan in the eye.

 

'Hyuk-ah. . .'

 

As Sanghyuk stood by the sidewalk's edge, hand raised to flag a cab, Jaehwan very carefully, very easily, slipped his hand into Sanghyuk's own. He said, 'I wanted you to come home with me, don't you understand?'

 

At this, Sanghyuk paused. He blushed, rather brightly, all the way to the tips of his ears. 'So you didn't hate the movie?'

 

'Oh, I dunno. I didn't pay attention to it.' Jaehwan wrapped his arms around Sanghyuk's middle as his heart danced restlessly. 'It wasn't bad, I didn't hate it. But I'd rather go home now.'

 

'With me?'

 

'Yes,' he laughed. 'With you.'

 

It was as they walked through Songpa so keenly pressed together that Jaehwan felt—or thought he felt, in this exact moment—everything fall into place. It was like a physical feeling, as if the wind had blown through the spaces between his bones; the earth shifting just below his feet. It was like hearing the pounding of a faraway drum, as distant as rumbling thunder in the center of his body. It was a spark, and as it fizzled and fused beneath his skin, Jaehwan latched onto it eagerly the way he so boldly latched onto Sanghyuk's body as if afraid to be swept away by the current of emotions.

 

'Will you stay all night this time?' Jaehwan asked as he spread out across the bed.

 

From the kitchen where he divided a single beer into two modest cups, Sanghyuk gave his word. 'I'll silence my phone.'

 

'Isn't that a bad idea? What if something really awful happens?'

 

'I'm not the first they call for emergencies.' He crawled across the bed with his hands full and his legs folded under himself. 'It doesn't matter. I'll stay either way, whether it rings or not. Probably better to keep it off then, hmm?'

 

'I guess so.'

 

He laughed. It was a goofy hiccup of a sound. 'What is it you want, Jaehwany? Do you want me to stay or to go work when they call?'

 

'I can't say, because if I tell you to turn off your phone, then I'll feel bad if they call.'

 

'Alright then.' Sanghyuk placed his cup on the bedside table. 'I'll make the decision myself and I won't tell you.'

 

He came close by scooting across the coverlet on his knees, hands extended to take Jaehwan's face gently between his palms. His nose was cold as it grazed the soft skin of Jaehwan's cheek; his breath a ghosting wave of beer and peppermint. It was terrifically hard for Jaehwan to keep himself steady. His hands trembled as a smile curled his mouth small.

 

'Maybe there's something on TV we can watch,' Sanghyuk murmured to Jaehwan's mouth.

 

'I don't want to watch anything.'

 

'How about a late dinner?' Looking over his shoulder to the clock in the kitchen, he laughed. 'A very late dinner.'

 

'I'm not hungry.'

 

'Then what should we do?'

 

Grin blooming like color across his face, Jaehwan fell onto his back; graceful as a figure skater. 'Why don't we lie here and do nothing? Listen to music. I have a radio. . .somewhere,' he laughed. 'If you can find it, then you can play whatever you want.'

 

It was a promise he intended to keep, but still: Jaehwan knew as Sanghyuk rose from the bed—mattress groaning loudly beneath his shifting weight—that if he found the radio (that was swept beneath the bed so far into the dark Jaehwan wondered if he could find it at all) Sanghyuk would simply play whatever Jaehwan told him to. It was a feeling like no other, to be held at such high regard for reasons unbeknownst to himself. He followed Sanghyuk with his eyes, thoughtful gaze, smiling all the time, as he fiddled through magazines and ratty books. It was the weirdest thing, he thought; simply the weirdest thing.

 

He reminded himself that Hongbin hadn't been much different; that in the few weeks that they spent together Hongbin would have leapt from a train if Jaehwan so badly wanted him to. But this was different, he told himself; so very different in a way that he would probably never be able to understand. For to see Sanghyuk—his broad back impossibly wide beneath his cotton white shirt—was like staring directly into white fluorescence. He burned bright with a heat so warming it was better than any company Jaehwan could remember. He felt light as down as he lay on the bed, his hands outstretched above him; it pained him to wonder just how long this feeling would last. But as Sanghyuk, defeated, traipsed back to the bed, his arms swinging at his sides, mouth bitten into a solemn pout, Jaehwan reached for him by the collar of his shirt; their lips met and all thought ceased to matter.


	3. Chapter 3

 

**H O N G   K O N G**

 

 

Interminable dark. It was impossible to tell what time it was; the sky bellied a deep grey overhead. For Taekwoon, it felt like weeks he had been alone in the silvery dark of some unnamed hotel room. But he knew—in a distant, muddled way— it hadn't been long at all. A few days, perhaps only two, but for him: time melded together like one continuous hour, incredibly long and hard to endure alone.

 

It hadn't been his decision to leave home. It had, in fact, been up to Hakyeon. It was despite Taekwoon's determination to find Sungrok, fraught with anger to repay what had been done to him, that Hakyeon demanded Taekwoon find a hotel, one small and unsightly, set away from the city so that Sungrok couldn't track him. But the hotel wasn't as far from Gangnam as one may have suspected; and it was in this way that Taekwoon felt oddly safe. As if he was hiding in plain sight.

 

On the outskirts of Gimpo, with the thundering rumble of jet engines low overhead, Taekwoon stared down at the empty cigarette pack on the turned down bed. It was a rotten reminder that he couldn't leave the hotel without phoning Hakyeon—but he felt no desire to indulge the other. Already, he could imagine Hakyeon fretting over the landline for Taekwoon to take precaution. _Are cigarettes worth your life?,_ he would ask irritably, maybe even a little spitefully. Taekwoon smiled at the thought of Hakyeon, so easily angered, wishing he could reach through the phone to strangle him; for of course Taekwoon would tell him in return: _yes—yes they're worth my life, why else have I been smoking all this time?_

 

It was pitiful, he realized, to have conversations alone in the depths of his own head.

 

He peered at the landline—he had abandoned his cell phone in the mess of the apartment—and willed it to ring, not because he had anything of particular importance to say, but because he was drowning in the quietude of the hotel room.

 

Desperately, and a little manic, he reached for the phone and dialed Hakyeon's number. In the eerie silence that followed—tinny rings crackling terribly loud—Taekwoon thought about the hierarchy he had lived beneath: Sungrok, at the top of the ladder, so comfortably set above all the rest. It was with arduous effort that Taekwoon wanted to oust this authority. He realized, very slowly—with growing gratitude—, that he had never once thought he'd made a real connection. His co-workers had been just so: co-workers; some of whom he had hated all the time.

 

But there was Hakyeon, he reminded himself. He was questionable as was everyone in their line of work, but he was still a lot better than the others.

 

'I'm leaving,' Taekwoon said firmly into the mouthpiece.

 

Hakyeon replied sounding bored, a little far off, as if his mind was elsewhere: 'What do you mean you're leaving? You're just gonna get up and go home? Gonna go find a new apartment in Daegu?'

 

'No. I mean I'm leaving. Don't ask where I'm going,' he said loudly over Hakyeon's sudden interjection. 'Before I go, I need you to do something for me.'

 

Silence came hot like sweltering wind blown over the phone line. It was impossible to live through it, but there was nothing else Taekwoon could do but speak; parting the silence like the Red Sea, so unmistakably forced.

 

'If ever, even for a moment, Hakyeon—if ever we were friends, and I don't mean men that simply worked together, but people who cared about each other, then I need you to do something for me.' He paused, and it was a lengthy pause, one so quiet he could hear the soft puffs of breath over the phone line: Hakyeon, listening intently.

 

'If I can trust you,' Taekwoon went on, feeling the strain of his voice as it rose with climbing desperation, 'then come to the hotel by the Gimpo Airport. It's across the street. I can't recall the name, but the building is blue.'

 

Again, no response came.

 

'Come in exactly one hour.' He fumbled with the phone line, dropping it clumsily onto the bedspread, until finally he returned it to its cradle. With a clatter, and a sulking _ding_ from the body of the phone—as if it was crying out weakly from being handled so poorly—Taekwoon set the phone on the nightstand. He thought it possible Hakyeon would call back; hadn't he screened Taekwoon's calls before, so often in the past it was like Hakyeon spent his spare time tracking Taekwoon down? But no such thing happened.

 

He wondered vaguely as he scoured the hotel room for the small bag of clothes he had brought along with him if Hakyeon would show. It wouldn't come as a surprise if he didn't—Sungrok could just as easily be tracking Hakyeon's whereabouts as he was Taekwoon's—but if he didn't, Taekwoon decided he would still leave. In exactly one hour he would check-out of that unnamed hotel room and that would simply be it. But he hoped Hakyeon would arrive and ask the front desk for the right check-in name—not Leo, like Sungrok so usually called him—but Taekwoon, the man he would be the moment he left that dreary city.

 

In a cotton T-shirt so unlike his usual attire of pressed button-ups and Valentino suit jackets, John Lobb boots glassy with fresh polish, Taekwoon stepped into a ratty pair of denim jeans. He felt odd for a moment, staring himself down in the over-lit hotel bathroom. There was nothing to give away his wealth—though, in retrospect, he had very little of it—aside from the Belvedere shine of his shoes. His complexion was sallow, his hair brushed neatly aside though unable to deter one's attention from the gradient of bruises along the left side of his face. He looked like hell, but felt better than he had in quite some time; with his heart beating wildly, fluttering erratic like the fresh wings of a newborn bird, Taekwoon left the hotel and his horrid reflection behind as he crossed the street toward the airport.

 

He had never flown before, and apart from one time had never been inside an airport. He hadn't the foggiest idea where to go or whom to address to book a flight, but after fifteen long minutes of wandering, Taekwoon came to a woman behind a tall, enamel counter. She overwhelmed him, for she stood a foot taller than he; her hair pulled into a severe bun atop her head.

 

'Can I help you?' she asked.

 

'I'd like to buy a ticket,' Taekwoon said slowly. He had spent most of the evening pondering where to go and had not come to a conclusion until right that moment, peering over the enamel counter at a large picture of Shanghai.

 

'Where would you like to go, sir?'

 

'Well, I suppose. . . there.'

 

The woman looked over her shoulder to where Taekwoon pointed and said, rather laxly: 'China, sir? Shanghai in particular?'

 

'Hong Kong,' he said, remembering so suddenly what Hongbin had said that night in the bar. Only days ago, he realized slowly as if his head had gone dumb. Hongbin had only been gone a couple nights and they had talked on the phone a few times already, but somehow it was unbelievable that Taekwoon had lain beside him just days before.

 

The woman tapped away on a large keyboard, eyes crystalline and reflecting the computer screen. She seemed inhuman in that moment and reminded Taekwoon of a movie he had seen before, so far in the past he couldn't recall the title; but there had been robots designed to be human. False humans among the real; the only indication that they weren't what they tried so hard to be was the shimmering reflection of their false eyes. Like hers, he thought; just like hers.

 

'We have a flight to Hong Kong at 9:09 this evening. There will be a layover in Gimhae of exactly one hour.'

 

'9, you said? What time is it now?'

 

'Half after 7. You'll have to check-in in exactly 30 minutes so that you won't be late.'

 

'No, no. I don't have enough time for that. I need another flight. One for tonight though, you understand. I want to get to Hong Kong before late.'

 

More tapping of the keyboard. She told him, 'There is another flight, a red-eye for 11 tonight. No layovers; you'll arrive in Hong Kong at 5 o'clock tomorrow morning. Would that be enough time?'

 

'Yes, that's perfect.' He handed her a credit card along with his identification card, the one he used for proper transactions which stated his birth name correctly. Jung Taekwoon, born 1990; age 31. The photograph was slightly outdated, but wholly him all the same.

 

'Is that all, sir?'

 

'No, I'd like to book another ticket.'

 

'The same flight? An accompanying passenger?'

 

'No,' he told her. 'A different flight. Same destination. I'd also like to make this one first class if possible.'

 

/

 

He didn't know the time when he left the airport, but it couldn't have been very late; for the sky leered tenebrous, a pasty blue lit by a skyline of buildings. It felt early. Even as Taekwoon trudged up the four flights of stairs to his fifth floor room, sweat sprouting beneath his collar, it seemed as if the night had only begun.

 

'The woman at the front desk let me in,' said a voice, surly in the dark. 'I can't believe you'd stay somewhere so poorly secured.'

 

The light above the bed flickered to life; and there stood Hakyeon with hands thrust deeply into his coat pockets. He looked tired, he looked ill-tempered. He walked about the room with an odd gait as if his joints troubled him.

 

He said, 'Taekwoonie, you can't stay here,' considerably kinder. 'Someone's gonna find you any moment now. Especially now, after I've come. Maybe I've been trailed, who knows?'

 

'Do you think you were?'

 

'I dunno.' He picked up the empty pack of cigarettes, then tossed them down again. He produced a pack of Lucky Strikes and lit two with the same flare of the lighter. 'Could have been.'

 

Taekwoon took the offered cigarette. 'Doesn't matter. I'm leaving anyway.'

 

'And you won't tell me where to?'

 

'No, not right now.' He ashed into an empty cup on the bedside; once filled with vodka it was now sticky with congealed alcohol like a sugary paste at the bottom of the glass.

 

'I need something from you,' Taekwoon said.

 

'Yeah, what's that?'

 

'There's a bar in Gangnam, not very far from my old apartment. It's beside the river.'

 

'What's it called?'

 

'The Wall.' As he spoke, Taekwoon crossed the room to retrieve a small bag he would take as a carry-on onto the flight. Inside was a change of clothes, his passport and identification cards; a magazine for his pistol which lay hidden between the mattress and iron bed frame. Among the contents was Hongbin's shirt; it had been folded neatly, starched and wrinkle-free. Taekwoon had gone to great lengths to keep it in such condition, and as he pulled it out of the suitcase and transferred it to a cloth grocery bag, he told Hakyeon: 'Give this to the bartender. His name's Wonsik—I think. He has dark hair, really short. If he's not there, then forget about it. Take it tomorrow instead.'

 

'Who's this bartender?'

 

'Friend of a friend.'

 

'A good friend?' Hakyeon inquired.

 

'Yes.'

 

His fingers brushed Hakyeon's hand as the bag was handed over. A brush of skin so natural, so terribly unimportant, it made Taekwoon's throat clench unbearably tight.

 

'What is it, Taekwoonie?'

 

'Thinking too much,' he shrugged. 'Look, just make sure Wonsik gets it and when you see him, don't tell him your name. It doesn't matter. Tell him nothing, but say the bag is for Hongbin.'

 

'Hongbin,' Hakyeon repeated.

 

'Yes. Tell him it's important Hongbin gets it as soon as his flight arrives.'

 

Nodding, Hakyeon shouldered the bag. He asked, 'What's this Hongbin to you?'

 

'I don't know. Just a friend,' he said when it was clear Hakyeon expected more of an answer. 'This is his stuff he left me to take care of, but I won't be here when he comes back from his trip.' He chewed the corner of his mouth, hysteria grappling up the back of his throat; he could feel it pressing down on him all at once.

 

Tentatively, Taekwoon asked: 'You're sure you weren't followed here?'

 

'No, not sure at all. But I don't think I was. It's Monday,' Hakyeon shrugged, eyes alight like burning embers. 'You know what Sungrok does on Mondays.'

 

Poker, Taekwoon thought. He started every week with a night of poker with the three bosses of the Seoul districts, none of whom Taekwoon could stand in all the years working for them.

 

'So he's at _Armoire,'_ Taekwoon murmured. 'Will be for some time.'

 

'If he isn't, he's at the bars next door. The one that always plays shitty pop music.' He laughed to himself; a gentle trill that had Taekwoon flashing a grin. 'He's right where he always is. Such a predictable man. If anyone ever wanted to kill him, they wouldn't have to look very far.'

 

A stunned silence followed; both men staring one another down with gentle ease. Hakyeon looked away first. He cleared his throat and plucked a string from the leg of his slacks.

 

He said: 'Taekwoonie, you know if you leave tonight. . . if you really go with all these loose ends still hanging about, you'll never be able to come back.' He looked up, staring intently into Taekwoon's face for only a second before looking away. 'They'll kill you if you ever return.'

 

'I've already thought about this.'

 

'So you know? Once you're gone, you can't visit. Your mother, your father. . .'

 

'No need to bring them into this.'

 

'Did it cross your mind,' Hakyeon began severely, 'what might happen to them once you leave? Sungrok can be such a baby, you understand? Maybe he'll do something unthinkable. To them.'

 

'I told you. I've thought about this already.' But he hadn't. Not about his mother—to hell with his father, he thought bitterly; but his mother. . . 'I can't afford to think like that. If I stay I'm dead, if I return I'm dead. I didn't want it to come to this, Hakyeon, it just happened to because—'

 

'Because Sungrok doesn't know how to let you go.' Hakyeon touched Taekwoon's elbow. 'So why don't you help him?'

 

It was awful the way Hakyeon looked there in that light; sallow and unkempt. His eyes glistened like glittering rings of light, a slight downward curve of his mouth. He needn't say anything more, for it was obvious what he meant; and the tingling that accompanied his words—a tickle in the palms of Taekwoon's hands—was unnerving.

 

'I would go along with you,' Hakyeon told him, 'but I have to tend to this.' He motioned to the bag. 'And, of course Taekwoon, you don't have to do anything that you don't want to.'

 

'Right, of course.' They stared together at a spot on the floor; invisible, imaginary, simply something to look at for they couldn't bring themselves to look at one another.

 

Taekwoon touched the nape of his neck. 'Either way, whatever I end up doing tonight, I'll be on the first flight out of here.'

 

'That's right.'

 

'So—' He smiled as he raised his head, though felt unable to convey any sense of hope. He held out his hand for Hakyeon to take. 'You've been a good associate.'

 

Hakyeon took his hand; palm damp and fingers ice cold against the tendons of Taekwoon's stiff joints. He smiled as he said, 'You're a fucking idiot, but yeah —It's been nice.'

 

And before either of them could say anything more, Hakyeon took the cloth bag with Hongbin's shirt folded neatly inside, and turned to the hotel door. He said nothing as he left, but lingered there, in the distilled silence. It was in this quietude Taekwoon heard all the words neither of them could ever bring themselves to say: _thank you; I wish you well; if only we had met under different circumstances could we then be friends._

 

/

 

Across the city where the Han River breathed cold, like streams of ice carried along a breeze, Taekwoon huddled within a phone booth. At 9 o'clock it felt awfully late, though the city still buzzed with early evening activity.

 

'Hello, can I please be connected to room'—Taekwoon checked the information he had obtained days before—'13, please. Lee Hongbin.'

 

The man at the front desk of The Grotto Hotel requested Taekwoon hold a moment, then the rushing jolt of elevator music sounded harsh over the phone line. It went on for a very long time.

 

Then, tiredly, a little dreary—Taekwoon believed he could, in the faintest light, imagine how Hongbin appeared; gloomy and half asleep, but handsome all the same—Hongbin murmured over the line, 'Hello?'

 

Taekwoon took a moment too long to respond. Hongbin uttered again, louder, 'Hel- _lo_?'

 

'Bin-ie?'—where had this nickname come from so suddenly?—'it's me.'

 

'Taekwoon—?'

 

'I'm sorry I'm calling so late.'

 

'Oh, it's fine, are you alright? You sound weird.'

 

'Yes, fine. I'm at a payphone. Listen,' he adjusted the phone chord; twirling it about his fingers as he leaned against the Plexiglas wall. 'I wasn't sure if my message would get through accordingly, so I thought I'd call.'

 

Hongbin yawned over the phone line. 'What are you talking about?'

 

'I left a bag with your friend Wonsik. Your shirt's in there with a couple other things I want you to have.' Overhead, a large jet plane quaked the skyline. 'I won't be here when you get back from your trip, so I want to make sure you get that bag as soon as you land.'

 

'Is it important?'

 

'Well, it's your stuff. Won't you want your things back?'

 

'Of course, but. . . well, you sound really weird, Taekwoon. Like you're going off somewhere.'

 

'I am. For a little while. I called even though it's a little late, because I wanted to make sure that you got my message before I left.'

 

'That's fine, Taekwoon, but. . . you sound upset. Are you upset?'

 

'No,' Taekwoon forced a laugh. In truth, he was nervous; anxiety plagued him like sickness. His hands had not stopped shaking since Hakyeon's departure. 'Don't overthink it, Bin-ie, I'm alright. I'm going on a small vacation, you see? I won't be available for the rest of the week.'

 

Hongbin, crestfallen, sighed over the phone; his voice was a deep echo through the crackle of the landline. 'So I won't be able to talk to you for a while?'

 

'Not until you get back. It won't be very long.'

 

'No, I guess not.'

 

'Just say you'll pick up the bag,' Taekwoon told him.

 

'I will,' Hongbin said in return. 'I said I would, so I will.'

 

'I promise when you get back, you'll see, OK? Maybe we'll meet up again. Sometime soon.'

 

'Well, alright. If you promise.'

 

Taekwoon wished very much to reach over the line, to touch Hongbin's soft cheek; he knew well from their short time together that Hongbin, as sensitive as he was, was tearing apart under the guise that Taekwoon didn't want him.

 

'It'll make sense,' Taekwoon told him. He closed his eyes as the roaring thunder of overhead planes burst abound. 'Once you get back, you'll understand.' Then, with a gentle breath like the coming breeze off the river; a yawning wind soothing as it was palpable, Taekwoon said: 'Have a good rest of your trip, alright? I'll see you again.'

 

As he returned the phone to its hook, he thought of Hongbin alone in a hotel, hollow like its name implied; where the bed sheets burned cool in the sweltering night of early autumn. Taekwoon's pistol was a searing weight in the palm of his hand as he stepped out of the phone booth. He assembled it easily; click of a pin into place, and his magazine inserted through the bottom of the handle. He examined it quietly before pulling back the hammer; safety clicked on.

 

/

 

Hakyeon was right, of course, as he so often was. Sungrok was an easy man to locate. Taekwoon imagined it was due to his soaring ego, and the idea that he had no enemies.

 

Outside Armoire leaflets littered the street corner: cat house advertisements, airplanes sky bound with fire streaming from jet engines; the suit emporium stood lackluster and abandoned, all the lights turned out as the blackened windows peered like vacant eyes into Taekwoon's ruddy face. But he needn't go far to find the man of the hour. The bar next door—an awful themed building with a name like By The Sea where the walls were painted ocean blue—was where Sungrok liked to hold his weekly poker games. Taekwoon had been there a hundred times before; sauntering through low-lit rooms with doors painted the same color as the walls, as if to keep them hidden from the rest of the world. Leather chairs and card tables of immaculate condition with legs of silver, embroidered in glittering orange garnet. They were never said to be real, but Taekwoon believed it was possible they could be; the owner, a retired jeweler, by the name Anatoly claimed to owe Sungrok his life for some obscure reason or other. A debt from another life, Taekwoon imagined; another world altogether. He paid it in jewel encrusted furniture, and cigarette boxes made of silver.

 

Stepping into the bar, Taekwoon reeled through a time-warp so powerful his legs wobbled beneath him. He hadn't been within By The Sea since he was last invited, years in the past, when Sungrok still considered him a great asset. To stand there now beneath waves of blue, pop music blaring from a radio tucked far away, was like standing in the threshold of his youth. Once, he had loved the smell of the enameled wood; Russian beer and Cognac; he had waded through crowds of surly men with Sungrok's hand on the small of his back, feeling as if he had—at one time—owned the world. Now: it was a deep pain in the pit of his stomach; his palms itched for a drink.

 

Anatoly noticed him immediately. Recognition like fire bright in his black eyes. He jutted his chin out, a welcoming motion and pointed to the back room.

 

'Here for your boss?' he inquired.

 

'Course. He's here?'

 

'In the back. With a couple others. Better knock before you head in.'

 

But Taekwoon wouldn't spare Sungrok so graciously. With his hands in his pockets, pistol hot against his lower back, Taekwoon shouldered his way to the back room where the door stood ajar, the only indication that there was a secret door there at all.

 

When the hinges creaked—a sound like a shriek in the dark—Taekwoon was greeted by three contemptuous faces, gnarled and beaten with scars unsightly. With little attention to the others, Taekwoon watched Sungrok intently.

 

Without thought, Taekwoon demanded: 'Do you love me?'

 

For a very long time, words went unspoken. Until finally, with a flick of his slender hand, Sungrok told the room, 'Get the fuck out.' He narrowed his gaze upon Taekwoon's face, a smarmy grin encasing him entirely. 'Come here, Leo-ssi.' Then, when Taekwoon was reluctant to move: 'Come on, come here, let me look at you.'

 

Taekwoon knelt by the foot of Sungrok's chair, allowing himself to be touched by fingers cold like iron, smelling of nicotine and copper.

 

'What did you ask me?' Sungrok murmured.

 

'If you love me.'

 

'Isn't that a silly thing to ask your hyung-nim? Don't you know the answer already?'

 

Anger surged, potent and impossible to swallow down. Taekwoon watched the floor, head bowed and feeling awful. 'I don't know.'

 

'Yes, you do. You know for fact I love you very much. Let me see your face.' He traced the fresh cut along Taekwoon's lip where four stitches had been sewn into him. 'I'm sorry I got out of hand. Come on. Don't look at me that way.'

 

To be touched by Sungrok was to be tainted by something poisonous. He petted Taekwoon like a lovable dog: hands within his hair, kind and elaborate as he followed the lines of Taekwoon's face. He touched a bruise and it hurt, but Taekwoon—unwilling to flinch—staved off what pain he felt.

 

'I don't mean to get angry,' Sungrok said.

 

'Yes you do.'

 

'No, don't say that. Do you really believe that?' Sat in his leather armchair, in a suit by Louis Vuitton, Sungrok patted his knee. 'Sit with me.'

 

'No, hyung, listen. I came to talk to you.'

 

'About what?'

 

'Us? I don't know. What you did.'

 

'Come on.' He patted his leg again. 'Don't do this. Come here.'

 

Worrisome of the gun in his pants, of anxiety storming his insides and melting him like water, Taekwoon carefully lowered himself into Sungrok's lap. He took Sungrok's hands into his own, wary of his touch.

 

'What about us, Leo-ssi? What are you thinking about?' His thumb rubbed infuriating circles across the back of Taekwoon's palm.

 

'There's someone else,' he said slowly. Words trickled like rain against a windowpane; every syllable falling like glass from his swollen mouth. 'You know that already, don't you? That's why you did what you did.'

 

'Leo.'

 

'You can't stand the idea of me being with somebody else.'

 

'That's not true.' Oh, but it was, Taekwoon thought spitefully; it had always been true. 'I don't care who you sleep with, only that you listen to me.'

 

Fingers carded together, Taekwoon guided Sungrok's hands to the bruised angle of his jaw. 'You did this, hyung. You'd do it again, wouldn't you?'

 

'I don't like hurting you,' he despaired quietly. 'Surely, you know this? I hate to hurt you, you mean so much to me.' He leaned in with his mouth searing like a brand against Taekwoon's cheek. 'All you have to do is listen.'

 

'What did I do wrong?'

 

Sungrok sighed. It was a harsh sound with growing impatience. 'I asked you to stay with me, you remember that—I know you do. But instead you went with someone else.'

 

'Yes —He's who I want to be with.'

 

'Oh'—he flicked his hand carelessly aside as if shoving away Taekwoon's faint words—'you say that now, but what about in a week? A month? You won't want him then.'

 

'It doesn't matter. He's who I want now. Right now, it's him.'

 

Terribly displeased, rage swarmed Sungrok's eyes like a coming storm. His cheeks grew a deep primrose, the tips of his ear burning light pink. He accused Taekwoon: 'You're doing this to hurt me. Is that it? You came here to hurt me because I hurt you. Getting even, are you?'

 

'Yes.'

 

'Well, it won't work.' His hand, once cradling the softness of Taekwoon's cheek, moved slowly toward the rising pulse within his throat. Sungrok's fingers twitched as they grazed the swell of collarbone, of Adam's apple; lingering there with fingers brushing Taekwoon's windpipe.

 

'You said you love me,' Taekwoon said. 'But you can't hurt someone you love.'

 

'I could say the same to you.'

 

'That's just it, hyung. Don't you get it?' He leaned impossibly close, able to smell the beer on Sungrok's breath, an underlining of something else. He smelled of charcoal, of spearmint gum. 'I don't love you.'

 

In an instant, Sungrok's hand gripped the front of Taekwoon's shirt. He said, hastily, 'You aren't thinking clearly. You come in here this way, I should have known. You're not in your right mind.'

 

'I am, though.' His nose brushed against the side of Sungrok's face, cold to the touch as if he was already dead. 'I have never thought so clearly as I am thinking right this instant, hyung-nim.'

 

Their eyes met. A moment balanced delicately in time. Taekwoon thought of running out. Of running away and never coming back. Who was this man before him if not the man that had taken him in? Seventeen, with nowhere to go—

 

'Leo-ssi, why don't we go somewhere? Why don't we go talk about this somewhere more private than this?'

 

'No, I. . .'

 

'Come on.'

 

It was the way Sungrok gripped the collar of Taekwoon's shirt; how, in his haste to take Taekwoon wherever he deemed fit—for how else was he to be treated? he was not an asset, nor a man; he was property—that he squeezed, painfully, the bicep of Taekwoon's arm. His touch ached down to the marrow of Taekwoon's bones, as if a hand print had been burned there, blistering red against milk white skin.

 

Taekwoon fought his grip—though barely. It was the ache of trying to leave, knowing well that he would get nowhere; and even if he did, Sungrok would simply hunt him down again, do what he had done before all over again until the wounds would no longer heal.

 

'I don't want to,' Taekwoon said glumly. He twisted away, hand caught in a single motion: Sungrok had him by the wrist. But already the moment was leaving; a loosening of joints, of blood boiling in Sungrok's cheeks; he was flushed with anger, and Taekwoon—grasping his pistol before he was certain what he was doing—felt the kick of the gun before he understood he had pulled the trigger.

 

With a great howl like the dying beast he was, Sungrok thrust Taekwoon to the floor. Slipping on something, something wet—realizing too late it was Sungrok's blood beneath his shoes—Taekwoon fell. He could see Sungrok's suit jacket was already damp; growing sticky as he rose on legs that visibly shook. His foot reeled back and smacked—viciously—into Taekwoon's side.

 

It was at the same moment that tears blurred his sight—pain so deep it burned him all over—Taekwoon heard the door thrown open. It clattered against the wall; and there stood Anatoly with a shotgun poised, haphazardly, at Taekwoon's head. Another kick of the gun: Taekwoon, aiming for Sungrok, silenced his howling with a burst of red above his left eye. Dead, before he hit the ground.

 

Taekwoon waited with terrible patience for the shotgun blast; to feel his insides ripped apart. But before this could happen—his mind unable to process what he was seeing—a bullet hole the size of a golf ball bloomed in the center of Anatoly's head. He, like Sungrok, fell with a great thud—like dirty laundry cast aside.

 

There, in the doorway, stood a boy so vaguely familiar Taekwoon at once lifted his gun, sure that he worked for one of the other bosses of Seoul. A boy he had ran into perhaps only once, but one nonetheless with a gun in his hands and his eyes wide like stars sparkling in his stricken face.

 

'Put the gun down,' he demanded loudly; voice shaking so badly it was as if he was in tears. ' _Sir—put the gun down or I will have to shoot you_.'

 

There was enough time to wonder: where had Taekwoon seen him before? He spoke like an officer, but looked nothing like one. Hair combed back and black as oil; a kind face, too young to be anyone of stature in the police department. It never did click and, frankly, it didn't matter; Taekwoon cocked his gun and pulled the trigger and watched as the bullet pulsed through the young cop's abdomen. A trail of gooey red left on the hardwood floor. Upon his face was a torrent of emotion so striking it was difficult to watch: confusion, pain, bubbling over like a kettle left on the stove for too long. He doubled-over, clueless; grappling for balance. His gun lay forgotten on the floor as his hands, stained red, covered the flowing wound embedded into his side.

 

When he collapsed it was graceless. Knees buckled; head bowed forward. He fell as if stunned, unable to process what he was looking at: his own life filtering freely through the spaces of his bones.

 

Able only to slip out unnoticed for a boy with keen eyes and a mouth swollen into a pout leaned over the young cop, grasping for him as he choked out a name— _Sanghyuk_ , over and over, _Sanghyuk, look at me—_ Taekwoon burst from the back of the building and into the dark embrace of Seoul. The wind smelled of promised rain; the sky, once draped in thin cotton-like cloud, was now bursting with grey nimbus the color of asphalt.

 

A mile down the road, he dropped the pistol in a dumpster. It wouldn't matter if the gun was ever found; for Seoul believed him to be a boy named Leo—born in Busan and emancipated at the age of 13. None of which was true. But this no longer mattered, for he was now free to be whomever he wished to be.

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

**E P I L O G U E**

 

 

Late, one evening—three days after the papers were plagued by the story of Sungrok's demise: _**SEOUL SYNDICATE LEADER SHOT TO DEATH OUTSIDE LOCAL BAR—**_ Hakyeon strolled through the pale pink entrance light of The Wall. He had with him the cloth bag Taekwoon had given him to care for. It still smelled of him. Hakyeon could smell the familiar cologne now as he lowered himself onto a bar stool.

 

'Can I help you?' the bartender inquired. He was a handsome boy. Too clean for Hakyeon, but handsome all the same.

 

'Do you know a Hongbin?'

 

'Sure,' he said slowly. 'Something the matter?'

 

'No. But my friend left town and he asked me to give this to you. For Hongbin.'

 

The bag lay oddly neglected on the counter top. Hakyeon watched Wonsik watch the bag as if awaiting something to happen.

 

'It's his shirt or something,' Hakyeon explained. He was bored already; bored of it all. He had meetings to attend. Business clients to meet with. 'Nothing very important, I don't think. But there's a plane ticket in there too. I snooped a bit,' he smiled.

 

'A plane ticket?'

 

'That's right.'

 

Wonsik folded the bag in half and placed it beneath the counter. He asked: 'Who's your friend, then? That businessman that comes in here all the time? Can't remember his name.'

 

'Probably best that way. But, yes.' Hakyeon rose stiffly. He ached all over; getting too old, he mused. Much too old for this bullshit. 'They were sweet on each other or something. I don't know. None of my business. You'll make sure he gets it, won't you?'

 

'Of course, yeah.'

 

With that, Hakyeon offered a lasting smile, the one he saved for the most charming of business partners. He was pleased to see the blush creep across Wonsik's face. Then, without hesitation, he stepped out of The Wall and onto the streets of Gangnam. The river breathed torrents of cold against his skin; autumn blooming brittle at his feet.

 

Overhead: airplanes the size of field mice blinked high above him. He couldn't bear to watch for long. It dizzied him to stare up at that blanket of black sky, head swarming with vertigo. But as the plane passed deafeningly, a jet of stream like cloud all that was left behind, he thought of Taekwoon. It was rather lucky he hadn't killed that cop; it was one thing to murder a mobster, another thing entirely for the police to be involved. Hakyeon wished deeply to be able to call him, to tell him: _O_ _nly idiots shoot at cops. Young ones at that._ But it would have to wait.

 

With a hand in the air, Hakyeon flagged down a passing cab. 'Where to,' the driver asked.

 

'Oh,'—he was awfully hungry—'do you know where The Silk Leaf is? Little restaurant around the corner? Take me there.' He rolled down the window as the cab edged from the curb. He would order a coffee, he decided then. Something bitter to warm his blood. Then off to the meetings. There was a lot to take care of now that everyone was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! feel free to come talk to me whenever you'd like ♡  
> [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/Iovleo), [twitter](https://twitter.com/lustfortaekwoon)
> 
> → cover art by my good friend [Julie](https://twitter.com/_kongsook)


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